‘The coffee’s boiling over!’ Marcia exclaimed.
‘Kiss me good morning.’
‘The coffee’s boiling over.’
‘I don’t care if it is.’
The coffee boiled over with an angry spurt that deluged the stove with hissing steam. Marcia was patently too anxious for its safety to give her attention to anything else. Sybert stalked over and viciously jerked it back, and she picked up the plate of rolls and ran for the door. He caught up with her in the hall.
‘I know why you discharged Marietta,’ he threw out.
‘Why?’
‘If I were a French cook with a moustache and a goatee and a fetching white cap, and you were a black-eyed little Italian nursemaid with gold ear-rings in your ears, I should very frequently let things burn.’
‘Oh,’ Marcia laughed. ‘And I should probably let the little boy I ought to be looking after fall over the balustrade and break his front tooth while I was sitting on the door-step smiling at you.’
‘And so we should be torn apart—there was a tragedy!’ he mused compassionately. ‘I hadn’t realized it before. It proves that you must suffer yourself before you can appreciate the sufferings of others.’