“Would you have had me not dismiss her instantly, then?” I cried at last, goaded by this persistence. “Is every shamelessness to be endured? Why, if the woman were a man and of my own station, honour would demand that I should fight a duel with her.”
“But you cannot fight a duel with a cook,” said Edelgard stupidly.
“Did I not expressly say that I could not?” I retorted; and having with this reached the point where patience becomes a weakness I was obliged to put it aside and explain to her with vigour that I am not only not a fool but decline to be talked to as if I were. And when I had done, she having given no further rise to discussion, we were both silent for the rest of the way to Berlin.
This was not a bright beginning to my holiday, and I thought with some gloom of the difference between it and the start twenty-five years before with my poor Marie-Luise. There was no Clothilde then, and no Panama hat (for they were not yet the fashion), and all was peace. Unwilling, however, to send Edelgard, as the English say, any longer to Coventry—we are both good English scholars as my hearers know—when we got into the droschke in Berlin that was to take us across to the Potsdamer Bahnhof (from which station we departed for London via Flushing) I took her hand, and turning (not without effort) an unclouded face to her, said some little things which enabled her to become aware that I was willing once again to overlook and forgive.
Now I do not propose to describe the journey to London. So many of our friends know people who have done it that it is not necessary for me to dwell upon it further than to say that, being all new to us, it was not without its charm—at least, up to the moment when it became so late that there were no more meals taking place in the restaurant-car and no more attractive trays being held up to our windows at the stations on the way. About what happened later in the night I would not willingly speak: suffice it to say that I had not before realized the immense and apparently endless distance of England from the good dry land of the Continent. Edelgard, indeed, behaved the whole way up to London as if she had not yet got to England at all; and I was forced at last to comment very seriously on her conduct, for it looked as much like wilfulness as any conduct I can remember to have witnessed.
We reached London at the uncomfortable hour of 8 A.M., or thereabouts, chilled, unwell, and disordered. Although it was only the second of August a damp autumn draught pervaded the station. Shivering, we went into the sort of sheep-pen in which our luggage was searched for dutiable articles, Edelgard most inconsiderately leaving me to bear the entire burden of opening and shutting our things, while she huddled into a corner and assumed (very conveniently) the air of a sufferer. I had to speak to her quite sharply once when I could not fit the key of her portmanteau into its lock and remind her that I am not a lady’s maid, but even this did not rouse her, and she continued to huddle apathetically. It is absurd for a wife to collapse at the very moment when she ought to be most helpful; the whole theory of the helpmeet is shattered by such behaviour. And what can I possibly know about Customs? She looked on quite unmoved while I struggled to replace the disturbed contents of our bags, and my glances, in turn appealing and indignant, did not make her even raise her head. There were too many strangers between us for me to be able to do more than glance, so
Edelgard most inconsiderately leaving me to bear the entire burden of opening and shutting our things
reserving what I had to say for a more private moment I got the bags shut as well as I could, directed the most stupid porter (who was also apparently deaf, for each time I said anything to him he answered perfectly irrelevantly with the first letter of the alphabet) I have ever met to conduct me and the luggage to the refreshment room, and far too greatly displeased with Edelgard to take any further notice of her, walked on after the man leaving her to follow or not as she chose.