“Perhaps I shall, for I want you to sit at table—regularly.”
He caught the word “regularly,” and played tunes upon it.
“I know,” said Eve, “and I like you for feeling that way—but you are fighting against nature—not convention—and that’s all wrong. We funny little things who walk about on the world must follow certain laws—we can’t help ourselves—and we may as well follow them sensibly. We have to lie down and get up and wash our faces and brush our hair and eat our dinners; we have to—if we didn’t we should accomplish nothing. It is foolish to fight with the ‘musts’ when there are armies of ‘needn’t be’s’ to draw the sword against.”
He snorted derisively and ridiculed prosaic philosophy. When he had finished she calmly repeated her question.
“How much do you spend a week on food?”
Very reluctantly he produced a sheet of paper and a pencil and scribbled a rough estimate.
“Will you give me the nine shillings and let me cater for you?”
“No,” he said emphatically.
“Please do.”
“Why should I spend money on a dinner when I can stave off hunger with a stick of chocolate?”