"Very well," I said, "I will endeavour not to be a girder; but you simply must get me a pot or two of marmalade."
"And allow the KAISER to win the War? Not if I know it. Besides, I don't like marmalade."
"There you are," I said. "You don't like marmalade—few women do—and so you're going to make a virtue for yourself by forcing me to give it up. My dear, you've given the whole show away."
"Don't juggle with words," she said, speaking with a dreadful calm. "I may be able to get a pot or two—say at the outside a dozen pots. Well, if I manage it I will inform you—"
"Yes," I said eagerly.
"If I manage it," she repeated, "you shall know of it, and you shall make your self-denial complete and efficacious."
"I don't like the way in which this sentence is turning out."
"You shall have a pot in front of you at breakfast, and you shan't touch a shred of it."
"Francesca," I said, "you're a tyrant. But no, you wouldn't be mean enough to do it—before the children too."
"Perhaps, as a concession, I would allow you a little marmalade in a pudding at luncheon."