“I’m off beer for the present; that’s all.”
“It’s quite good; I tasted some when I drew it,” said Dolly, after a pause.
“Dare say,” said Bernard, regarding the silver jug as though he thought the beer very good indeed, “but I don’t want it to-day. Are you going to give me some tea?”
Dolly made a step towards the cupboard, checked herself, and sat down. “You’d better fetch the cup yourself; it’s the proper thing for you to wait on me.”
“I don’t see why we should always be on our best behaviour here at home,” observed Bernard, as, in complying, he knocked over the sugar basin.
“Because if you don’t practise at home you go wrong when you are out. You pushed past me on Sunday as we came out of church.”
The charge being true, Bernard felt annoyed. He essayed to drink his tea, pursed up his lips, and put down the cup in a hurry.
“If you won’t drink the beer, I will; it would be a pity to waste it,” said Dolly, who was watching him.
“You’d get tipsy if you drank all that.”
“I was not proposing to drink all that; I could not do it if I tried. I cannot understand how men can dispose of so much.”