“Well, now you can hardly sleep in the kitchen,” she snapped. “Where do you imagine you’re going to sleep, I’d like to know?”
“Where I always did,” Mr. Priestley snapped back. “In here.”
Laura looked at him with wide eyes. “Don’t be absurd, please. That’s out of the question.”
“Anything else is out of the question,” Mr. Priestley said angrily. “It’s you who are being absurd. What you don’t seem to understand is that this is a question of life or death.”
Once again Laura was up against a brick wall. “Well, anyhow, you’re not going to sleep in here. Kindly get that out of your head once and for all. As soon as you’ve gone I shall lock the door.”
“In that case,” said Mr. Priestley grimly, “I shall break it in.”
They looked at each other stormily.
Upon this Pleasing domestic scene the landlady returned.
The constraint in the atmosphere was obvious, but the landlady did not mind that. Quite natural, most excitingly natural, in the circumstances. She dispensed elderberry wine with a generous hand. The occasion called for a generous hand, and the landlady did not fail to respond. Her hand was more than generous; it was prodigal.
“My best respex,” said the landlady happily, raising her tumbler, unlike the other tumblers only a quarter full.