"You don't know?—Then we'll find out if we can. Perhaps there's a name inside it."
She helped him off with it, and he, hoping devoutly that there might not be a name inside it, watched her fascinatedly. He saw her examine the inside of the collar and then throw the coat on the floor.
"So you've been there again," was all that she said. Once again he replied, maddeningly: "I—I don't know."
She almost screamed at him: "Don't keep telling me you don't know! You're not ill—there's nothing the matter with you at all—you're just pretending! You couldn't keep order in the Big Hall, so you ran away like a great coward and went to that woman! Did you or didn't you? Answer me!"
Never before, he reflected, had she quarrelled so shrilly and rancorously; hitherto she had been restrained and rather pathetic, but now she was shouting at him like a fishwife. It was a common domestic bicker; the sort of thing that gets a good laugh on the music-hall stage. No dignity in it—just sordid heaped-up abuse. "Great coward"—"That woman"—!
He dropped his lost-memory pose, careless, now, whether she found out or not.
"I did go to Clare," he said, curtly. "And that's Clare's raincoat. Also Clare bandaged me—rather well, you must admit. Also, I've drunk Clare's coffee and warmed myself at Clare's fire. Is there any other confession you'd like to wring out of me?"
"Is there indeed? You know that best yourself."
"Perhaps you think I've been flirting with Clare?"
(As he said it he thought: Good God, why am I saying such things? It's only making the position worse for us both.)