“What do you want that stone for?” he asked.
“It’s not for anything particular. I just found it on the beach, and it was so pretty.”
He swept up a little heap of faded grass that lay beside the mirror, and put it in a newspaper.
“I don’t know if you want this for anything?” he asked, checking himself.
“No, it’s no good now. It’s sorrel; I was going to use it for a salad.”
“It’s been lying here over a week,” he said. “And it’s made a stain here on the polish.”
“There, that shows you. Polished furniture’s such a nuisance; I can’t see any sense in it myself.”
At that he burst out into an angry laugh. His wife dropped her work and stood up.
He could never leave her in peace, but was always worrying the life out of her with his lack of sense. And so they drifted once more into one of the foolish, fruitless quarrels that had been repeated at intervals through the past four years. The priest had come up in all humility to beg his wife’s indulgence because he could not get her the new shoes at once, but he found it now more and more impossible to carry out his purpose; bitterness overpowered him. Things were all wrong every way at the Vicarage since Jomfru van Loos had left them and his wife had taken over the housekeeping herself.