Then Mrs. Menzies-Legh, raising her eyes from her potatoes, saw me standing motionless and called out that the vegetables would soon be ready for the fire, but she feared if I were not quick the fire would not soon be ready for the vegetables; and thus urged, and contrary to my first intention, I hastily emptied the sticks out of the handkerchief into the ditch and began to endeavour to light them.
But they would not light. Match after match flared an instant, then went out. It was a windy evening, and I saw no reason for supposing that any match would stay alight long enough to get even one stick to catch fire. I went down on my knees and interposed my person between the sticks and the wind, but though the matches then burned to the end (where were my fingers) the sticks took no more notice than if they had been of iron. Losing patience I said something aloud and not, I am afraid, quite complimentary, about wives who neglect their duties and kick in shortened skirts over the traces of matrimony; and Edelgard’s voice immediately responded from the other side of the hedge. “But lieber Otto,” it said, “is it then my fault that you have forgotten the paper?”
I straightened myself and looked at her. She had already been on the search for sticks, for as she advanced to the gap and stood in it I saw she had an apronful of them. I must say I was surprised at her courage in confronting me thus alone, when she was aware I must be gravely displeased with her and could only be waiting for an opportunity to tell her so. She, however, with the cunning common to wives, called me lieber Otto as though nothing had happened, did not allude to my overheard exclamation and sought to soften me with sticks.
I looked at her therefore very coldly. “No,” I said, “I had not forgotten the paper.”
And this was true, because to forget paper (or indeed anything else) you must first of all have thought of it, and I had not.
“Perhaps,” I went on, my coldness descending as I spoke below zero, which is the point in our well-arranged thermometers (either Celsius or Réaumur, but none of their foolish Fahrenheits) where freezing begins, “perhaps, since you are so clever, you will have the goodness to light the fire yourself. Any one,” I continued with emphasis, “can criticize. We will now, if you please, change places, and you shall bring your unquestioned gifts to bear on this matter, while I assume the role suited to lesser capacity, and merely criticize.”
This of course, was bitter; but was it not a justified bitterness? Unfortunately I shall have to suppress the passage I suppose at the reading aloud, so shall never hear the verdict of my friends; but even without that verdict (and I well know what it would be, for they all have wives) even without it I can honestly call my bitterness justified. Besides, it was very well put.
She listened in silence, and then just said, “Oh, Otto,” and came down at once into the ditch, and
“But, lieber Otto, is it then my fault that you have forgotten the paper?”