Her first coherent thought was overwhelming relief. Her next an equally overwhelming, but less reasonable, anger. She stamped her foot. “Is this what you were meaning all the time?” she asked wrathfully. From her tone one might have deduced that she was suffering a fearful disappointment, yet this was not really the case.
“Of course,” said Mr. Priestley in surprise, lathering vigorously.
“Then why on earth didn’t you say so?”
“But I did! Half a dozen times.”
“You didn’t!”
“Didn’t I?” Mr. Priestley’s surprise was genuine enough, but he was much more interested at the moment in his experiment with the soap. “But surely I told you downstairs? What else do you imagine I wanted this bedroom for?”
Laura brushed away the remnants of her tears with an indignant hand. It is seldom given to mortal man, and still less to mortal woman, to feel quite so incredibly foolish as Laura did at that moment. She did not appear to appreciate the privilege conferred upon her.
“I didn’t know what you wanted it for,” she said, with feeble pettishness.
“But didn’t you understand what I was wanting you to come and do?” asked Mr. Priestley, but a little absently, for he really was extraordinarily interested in that soap. One might say that at that moment Mr. Priestley’s heart was in his soap. “What did you think I wanted, then?”
“Something else,” said Laura curtly, looking out of the window and feeling that she would begin to scream very loudly if Mr. Priestley asked her one single more awkward question on this topic.