‘Well, if you can’t bear to be told everything is not perfection, I don’t know what is to be done.’ And Arthur, in displeasure, took up a candle and walked off to smoke a cigar in his sitting-room down-stairs.
Her tears were checked by consternation, and, earnest to be forgiven, she followed; then, as he turned impatiently, said, in a trembling pleading voice, ‘Dear Arthur, I’ve done crying. I did not mean to be cross.’
‘Well, that’s enough, never mind,’ said he, not unkindly, but as if in haste to dismiss the subject, and be left to the peaceful enjoyment of his cigar.
‘And you forgive me?’
‘Forgive? nonsense—only don’t begin crying about nothing again. There’s nothing more intolerable than for a woman to be always crying, whenever one speaks to her.’
‘’Twas not so much that,’ said Violet, meekly, ‘as that I was vexed at the dinner not looking well, and it won’t, without spending such quantities of money!’
‘Quantities—what do you call quantities?’
She named the cost of the last dinner, and he laughed at her horror; then, when she was going to prove that it was disproportionate to their means, he silenced her:
‘Well, well, never mind; we are not going to give any more dinners just yet; but when we do, have done with pinching and squeezing. Why, you don’t look fit to be seen after it.’
‘I’m only tired.’