"Nell," at the end of the afternoon Denis burst in, "I'm all bottled up! Let me explode! Wasn't it a beastly lunch, old girl? I know we've got to be poor,—horribly, beastly poor,—but I can't stand making a show like that before a guest—making him think he oughtn't to be there at all—hang it all, to be stingy to one's friends!"
"You see," said Nell, in quite a weary old little voice, "poverty isn't so picturesque out of books as in them."
"Rice and rank butter—bricky bread! It's all rot! We can stint more when we're alone."
"I didn't know Ted was coming."
"Good Heavens, are we to live like pigs, that we can't ask anyone to lunch without an elaborate warning beforehand?"
"You just said we could stint—"
"I don't care what I said! It was a ridiculous and needless fiasco! And you know it! Why are we living so much worse all of a sudden? When Aunt Kezia's here we do have something decent to eat, though it is plain."
Nell sprang up. She flung her palette, her brush, down.
"Why don't you telegraph for her to come back since you miss her so terribly? I can't do any better! It's so beautifully easy to stand and look on, and then grumble because you can't live on the fat of the land! What do you care if the butcher's bill runs to a disgraceful total—if we're spending six times as much as we ought—if we have, in the end, to beg money of Aunt Kezia, because ours has all gone—if the bread-pan is full of stale bread? No, you're the lordly male creature who ordains impossibilities and expects them to be carried out with a smiling face! Oh, I'm sick—sick of it all! And I loathe and abominate housekeeping on farthings! It's sordid and hateful!" And she fled from the room.
Denis stood and stared at the door; then he gave a low whistle, and walked slowly up and down the room. Finally, he strode out and banged on to Nell's door.