And it was not for the first time, he reminded himself. Half lies had been an essential part of their love-making. At every crisis of their relationship he had tampered with the truth. He had told her he had only made love to Dolly because she had rejected him that evening at the ball. He had told her that it was her belief in him that had inspired his success at Hogstead. He had mistaken the fraction for the whole. Were they never to meet on terms of common honesty? What was their love worth if it had to live on lies?
He returned home to find the drawing-room fire almost out.
“Will these servants never do their work?” he grumbled.
That evening the soup plates happened to be cold and the joint overdone.
“It gets worse every day,” he said. “I don’t know what that girl thinks she’s paid for. She never does anything right.”
And when he went upstairs to turn on a bath he discovered that all the hot water had been used in washing up the plates. He returned to the drawing-room in a fury of impatience.
“I do wish, mother,” he said, “that you’d explain to Lizzie that there’s no need for her to wash herself as well as the plates in that sink of hers.”
“And I wish you wouldn’t grumble the whole time, Roland,” his mother retorted. “Lizzie’s got a great deal to do. She has to do the cooking as well as the housework. I think that, on the whole, she manages very well.”
“I am glad you think so,” said Roland, and walked out of the room.
Next morning he found on his plate a letter from Mrs. Marston, inviting him down for the week-end.