"What's the good of going back to that?" she asked.
"None; it is merely amusing," said I.
The flush deepened.
"Will you allow me to be insulted?" she cried.
"Let us be cool. You've yourself to thank for this, Victoria. Why aren't you pleasanter to him?"
"Oh, he's—I'm all I ought to be to him."
"I don't know what you are to him, you're very little with him."
I suppose that these altercations assume much the same character in all families. They are necessarily vulgar, and the details of them need not be recalled. For myself, I must confess that my sister found me in a perverse mood; she, on her side, was in the unreasonable temper of a woman who expects fidelity but does not show appreciation. I suggested this point for her consideration.
"Well, if I don't appreciate him, whose fault was it I married him?" she cried.
"I don't know. Whose fault is it that I'm going to marry Elsa Bartenstein? Whose fault is anything? Whose fault is it that Coralie Mansoni is a pretty woman?"