“Gee!” Tembarom ejaculated, slapping his knee, “there's another! You think of every darned thing, don't you?”
She stopped a moment to look at him.
“You'd have thought of it all yourself after a bit,” she said. She was not of those unseemly women whose intention it is manifestly to instruct the superior man. She had been born in a small Manchester street and trained by her mother, whose own training had evolved through affectionately discreet conjugal management of Mr. Hutchinson.
“Never you let a man feel set down when you want him to see a thing reasonable, Ann,” she had said. “You never get on with them if you do. They can't stand it. The Almighty seemed to make 'em that way. They've always been masters, and it don't hurt any woman to let 'em be, if she can help 'em to think reasonable. Just you make a man feel comfortable in his mind and push him the reasonable way. But never you shove him, Ann. If you do, he'll just get all upset-like. Me and your father have been right-down happy together, but we never should have been if I hadn't thought that out before we was married two weeks. Perhaps it's the Almighty's will, though I never was as sure of the Almighty's way of thinking as some are.”
Of course Tembarom felt soothed and encouraged, though he belonged to the male development which is not automatically infuriated at a suspicion of female readiness of logic.
“Well, I might have got on to it in time,” he answered, still trying not to look affectionate, “but I've no time to spare. Gee! but I'm glad you're here!”
“I sha'n't be here very long.” There was a shade of patient regret in her voice. “Father's got tired of trying America. He's been disappointed too often. He's going back to England.”
“Back to England!” Tembarom cried out forlornly, “Oh Lord! What shall we all do without you, Ann?”
“You'll do as you did before we came,” said Little Ann.
“No, we sha'n't. We can't. I can't anyhow.” He actually got up from his chair and began to walk about, with his hands thrust deep in his pockets.