'I have taken that into account. I know how many hours I have worked at fivepence three-farthings (needles and thread included). Nevertheless, the balance is against me. There is the warming-pan, or the scrubbing-brushes, or the fish-glue'—
He struck his fist against the stable door to drown her words.
Zita put her hand on his arm.
'It is of no good your acting the fool,' she said. 'What is right is right. I shouldn't feel square in my insides if the account were not balanced. My dear father was mighty particular on that score. Every night we balanced our accounts as true as any banker, with a stump of a pencil as he sucked. If I don't balance I can't sleep. I'll put to my account some pins I had set to yours, all because of that squinch of the wrist you gave me. If I were to leave your house to-morrow, Master Drownlands, you'd find on the shelf in my room a row of articles that I reckoned up would belong in rights to you as balancing our account.'
He did not answer. He thrust his horse into a stall and put a halter round its head.
Then Zita went to the corn-chest and brought out a feed. The horse whinnied as he sniffed the oats. Drownlands was in the stall tightening the knot at the end of the halter. As Zita turned to depart, after having tossed the oats into the manger, he came out after her, and, laying hold of one side of the corn-measure, said—
'Are you going?'
'Yes. I have fed Pepper.'
He shook the measure, and said, in tones of angry discouragement, 'You will not take a bite of my bread, nor lie on a flock of my wool, nor cover your golden head with one tile of my roof, but you must weigh each and prize and pay me its value to the turn of a hair.'
'Not so exactly; of course, I leave a margin.'