"Well, darling, so it is in a way: but I think when the poets spread themselves they refer to the later spring, and not to February and March. Annabel always trembles before the East wind then, as you know."
"But nobody could accuse Annabel of being a poet."
This was undeniable, but it didn't help on the conversation. So I made a fresh start. "She may not be a poet, but she is a very sensible woman, and very devoted to you, sweetheart; and she thinks that you are looking listless and tired and in need of a change. So she suggests that she and I should take you to the South of France for Lent and Easter." I was determined to give my sister her full share of credit in this matter; all the more so that I suffered some compunction for my summary treatment of her at Christmas.
Fay's pretty mouth began to pout. "Not for Easter, Reggie; I couldn't possibly go away for Easter. Frank and I and the Loxleys are getting up a play here for Easter week, to be performed in the village hall."
"I knew nothing of that. You never told me anything about it," I said in some surprise.
"Why should I? You don't care a bit about theatricals, Reggie, or show the slightest interest in them."
"Yes, I do. I am interested in anything that interests my wife, as every good husband should be."
"Oh, Reggie, don't talk flapdoodle to me! It is ridiculous to think you feel a thing simply because you think you ought to feel it. You assume that because you ought to be interested in what interests me, you are interested in it: but you really aren't in the least. I don't say that it wouldn't be nice if we were both interested in the same things. But if we aren't, it doesn't make it any nicer to pretend that we are."
I felt as if the solid earth were slipping away from beneath my feet. With the freedom of utterance vouchsafed to the rising generation, Fay was shouting upon the house-tops the things which Annabel only whispered to me in my private sanctum, and which I never breathed to a living soul.
"You and Annabel are always pretending that things are quite different from what they are," Fay went on; "and shutting your eyes to everything you don't want to see. Frank and I are fed up with it."