“My dear,” he observed, “be reasonable.” Katharine closed her eyes with an expression of unutterable contempt. “All this, just because I ventured to suggest that, if Beatrice had time to do it, she might take charge of my linen.”
“Have you ever heard of meiosis?” said Mrs. Festival. “It means the opposite of exaggeration.”
“I repeat,” said Giles, “that that was the humble suggestion at which you took offence. I mayn’t have put it in those words, but——”
“You didn’t,” said Katharine. “You put it much more vividly. You said that the condition of your wardrobe was enough to make a beachcomber burst into tears——”
“So it is.”
“—and that, if I hadn’t got the moral courage to order ‘a lazy sweep of a lady’s maid to pull up her rotten socks,’ I could ‘blinkin’ well finance her’ myself. You added that you’d given up a valet, so that I could have more money ‘to blow upon my back,’ and that my interpretation of my marriage vows was funny without being vulgar.”
Her husband swallowed.
“I was referring,” he said doggedly, “to your promise to cherish me.”
“You promised the same.”
“Yes, but I keep it, Kate. I do cherish you. I’m always cherishing you. Only yesterday afternoon—seventeen blinkin’ quid for a hat worth eighteen pence . . . and not a murmur.”