“Have I? Thanks for telling me. Then I’ll go——”
“Your going would not alter the fact that my work has been interrupted. I shall do no more work to-day, whether you go or not. I—I”—his voice became thick with anger, or scorn, or some complex combination of the two—“I have—been—spiritually interrupted!”
She took off her thick furs and muff.
“I’m going to stay,” she said quietly, “and we’re going to have tea and then go for a walk. I think you and your arguments are very silly.”
It was immensely significant, that final sentence of hers. Before, she would never have dared to say such a thing to him. But now she felt he was in some strange way delivered into her power: she was not afraid of treating him like a baby. The truth was, he was no longer a god to her. And her task was, if possible, to strip from him the last remnants of his divinity. His strange conversation she had but half understood: but it immensely reassured her as to this subtle and mysterious power she possessed over him. But she divined that her task was difficult: she feared an explosion that would be catastrophic. The atmosphere was too tense for either comfort or safety: she would have to lower the temperature. And all the time her own heart was a raging furnace within her.
“Mrs. Tebbutt is out,” he said gruffly. “I’m hanged if I know where anything is. I was going to go out to tea at Mason’s.” (Mason’s was the café in the Bockley High Street.)
“How like a man not to know where anything is!” she commented lightly, removing her hat. “Never mind, I’ll soon find out. And you’ll be saved the trouble of going to Mason’s.”
She discovered it was absurdly easy to treat him like a baby.
She found crockery and food without much difficulty, and while she was making tea he followed her about from room to room, chatting quite genially. His surliness seemed to vanish entirely: he became charmingly urbane. Evidently her method of treatment bad been completely successful. The tension of the atmosphere had been very much lowered, and he seemed quite schoolboyish in his amateur assistance at what he called “indoor picnicking.” As she emerged from cupboards carrying cups and plates and fancy cakes he looked at her very much as if she were a species of conjurer.
They behaved just like a couple of jolly companions as they sat round the fire and had tea.