“You do as you like,” he said. “I’m having dinner here.”
“All right.” His rudeness, he noticed, no longer seemed to have any effect. “I’ll start getting it.”
He debated, and decided against, offering her a drink or having one himself. He was sure that he would not be affected by a cocktail or two, but he preferred to take no chance of having his tongue loosened. Dinner was even more silent than lunch had been.
When they were through, he said, “I’ll do the dishes.”
“You know what I said this noon about finishing what I start,” she said.
“All right. Then if you’ll excuse me, I’m going upstairs and try to do some work.”
“You know, you really ought to get out more,” she said. “I’ll bet you’ve been cooped up in this house for days.”
“May I remind you that my wife has just died, and that I’m not exactly in the mood for the gay spots?”
“I didn’t mean that. As Sergeant Bauer would say, that wouldn’t look good. But you could—”
“ I didn’t say it wouldn’t look good — I said I’m not in the mood for it.”