“Oh, I forgot. Never mind, don’t worry about that.”
“No, no.... Forgotten, did you say? Ketill, I hardly know you again.”
“Whatever do you mean by that? One can’t always be in the best of tempers, I suppose?”
“No, perhaps not. But—it seems a strange homecoming, that’s all.”
Ketill was silent. He had no reply to offer, and the conversation bored him. He was curiously indifferent to Alma’s feeling of well-being or the reverse. What was she, after all? A child, thoughtless, ignorant, like all women—and most men too, for that matter. She was out of sorts just now—never mind, she would have forgotten it by tomorrow. At any rate, he could make it all right again then; perhaps he might feel more in the mood for paying attention to her troubles. Ketill was thinking in this strain when Alma spoke again.
“It is strange that you should be so different now, all at once. It almost seems as if our marriage had separated us rather than brought us together.”
Ketill had no time now to bother about whether there were any truth in this or not: no, the only thing to do was to smile in a superior fashion and not let himself be put out. And he smiled accordingly, the self-satisfied smile of a priest and a model husband, setting aside his bad temper for the moment, and said:
“There, there, little philosopher—let us put off the quarrel till another day.”
“Quarrel? Oh, I had never thought to quarrel. I’m only unhappy, that’s all.”
“Well, don’t you think it might be reasonable to imagine that I had some reason for being—well, not in the best of tempers today—what?”