Albert made no reply, which Clara noted as a signal manifestation of self-control, for this was not certainly “pouring oil upon the troubled waters.” In Paris, Albert had greatly appreciated the excellent quality of the coffee, and had brought home with him a French cafétière, which ever after appeared on the Delano breakfast-table.
“Why, my son,” said Mr. Delano, “I consider this coffee very good;” and he sipped his with gusto.
“But it is not perfect; and there is no excuse for it, that I can see. However, the toast is so infinitely worse, that I suppose the coffee ought to escape comment.” Ella had the bad taste to laugh.
Miss Delano replied satirically, and in the same breath asked for more toast.
“I should like to find one woman,” said Albert, “who could hear the least criticism on any housekeeping detail without immediately taking it as a personal matter. You did not make the toast, Charlotte, and why try to make it out good when it is not, and force yourself to eat more than you want, by way of argument? You must know that it is made of stale bread.”
“I was not aware that toast is usually made of fresh bread,” said Miss Charlotte.
“As a chemist, I can assure you that it makes the best, though stale bread will do; but it does not follow that the older it is, the better. If it did, then the loaves lately excavated at Pompeii would be just the thing.”
“I think a chemist at the breakfast-table,” rejoined Miss Delano, “is about as comfortable as the memento mori of the ancients.”
“The Pompeian loaves,” said Clara, anxious to avoid any more unpleasant words between Albert and Charlotte, “having been toasted to a cinder, some two thousand years ago, would make a sorry toast, even if stale bread is better than fresh.”
“So you find a flaw in my logic, do you? I forgot the original toasting. It takes a woman to keep hold of all the intricate threads of the logical web.” Clara looked at Albert, to satisfy herself that he was not laughing at her, or at women in general, which was much the same thing in effect.