“Resign! Damn it, woman, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” It was the first time he had ever sworn at her. Inwardly she laughed.
“I’m sorry, old thing,” he said a minute later.
She stalked on haughtily. She was flirting, deliberately flirting, with her own husband. And she felt a fool. Rather a delicious fool, though. Suddenly, he became aware of her; acutely, physically almost. . . . Then the custom of years overwhelmed both.
“The trout,” remarked Patricia, “took the May-fly with a rush. . . .”
He caught her meaning at once. “But you shouldn’t rag about that sort of thing, Pat.”
“You deserved it. And besides, you lost your temper with me. That means a forfeit—fizz for dinner.”
They had drifted back—neither quite realizing—to the early days of their marriage.
“There’ll be plenty of bubbly tonight, without my standing any.” He began to talk about Alice’s husband. She countered with a relation of Violet’s sudden prosperity. Peter had not told about his quarrel with Herbert Rawlings: Pat objected to criticism of her relatives—even when she knew the criticism justified. His little mood of bitterness passed; leaving only a caustic humour in its wake.
“Great man, that brother-in-law of yours,” he laughed. “I saw his picture in one of the illustrateds last week. They called him ‘a patriotic war-worker.’ I think. Something of the sort. . . .”