It did perfectly. “Oh, thank you,” she said. “How kind you are! And you do forgive me, don’t you?”
“About the cereal? Oh, yes, on one condition.”
“What is that?” She was still meltingly sweet.
“That you wash these dishes.”
She felt inclined to box his ears. Had he seen through her all the time?
“I never washed a dish in my life,” she observed thoughtfully.
“Have you ever done anything useful?”
She reflected, and after some thought she replied, not boastfully, but as one who states an indisputable fact: “Never.”
He folded his arms, leant against the wall and looked down upon her. “I wish,” he said, “if it isn’t too much trouble that you would give me a detailed account of one of your average days.”
“You talk,” said she, “as if you were studying the manners and customs of savages.”