"What a question—I love you."
Safe in the car, with the glass screen shutting away the chauffeur, Jean returned to the point of attack.
"Hilda makes me furious, Daddy. I came to talk about her."
"I thought you came because you wanted to ride with me."
"Well, I did. But for this, too."
Over her muff, her stormy eyes surveyed him. "You think I am unreasonable about meatless and wheatless days. But you don't know. Hilda ignores them, Daddy—you should see the breadbox. And the other day she ordered a steak for dinner, one of those big thick ones—and it was Tuesday, and I happened to go down to the kitchen and saw it—and I told the cook that we wouldn't have it, and when I came up I told Hilda, and she laughed and said that I was silly.
"And I said that if she had that steak cooked I would not eat it, and I should ask you not to eat it, and she just stood with her hands flat on your desk, you know the way she does—I hate her hands—and she said that of course if I was going to make a fuss about it she wouldn't have the steak, but that it was simply a thing she couldn't understand. The steak was there, why not eat it? And I said it was because of the psychological effect on other people. And she said we were having too much psychology and not enough common sense in this war!
"Well, after that, I went to my Red Cross meeting at the church. I expected to have lunch there, but I changed my mind and came home. Hilda was at the table alone, and, Daddy, she was eating the steak, the whole of it—." She paused to note the effect of her revelation.
"Well?"
"She was eating it when all the world needs food! She made me think of those dreadful creatures in the fairy books. She's—she's a ghoul—"