“I’ve never tried.”
“Then it’s safe to assume you can’t. Can you cook?”
“Unfortunately I wasn’t brought up in a kitchen.”
“In that case you can only make yourself useful by fetching water and washing up. If you like eating scrambled eggs, you can help by cleaning up after them. If you don’t like that, you can live on bread and water, which involves no washing. The diet is dull, but you won’t starve on it. Let’s have it quite clear. You chose to travel this way—”
“I’ve never regretted anything so much in my life.”
“You might have regretted being locked up in a German prison still more. I’m not running a conducted tour with a team of cooks and bottle-washers trailing behind. This is a simple matter of the fair division of labor. There are six more days of it coming, and you may as well try to get through them decently.”
“What do you think I am?” she flared. “A working slut like that girl at the inn?”
His eyes met hers steadily.
“I think you’re an idle loafer who ought to learn a little about honest work. I think you’ve lain so soft all your life that you need some hardship and crude discomfort to catch your spine before it dissolves altogether. Both those things are going to happen to you before we get to Innsbruck. You’ve ceased to be ornamental, so now you’re going to turn into a useful working squaw — and like it!”
“Am I?” she said, and then her open hand struck him across the face.