"How irritable and unreasonable he is becoming!" his wife reflected, as she heard him putting on his overshoes in the hall.
IX
For Christmas day the weather turned mild again. There would be a family dinner in the evening, but St. Peter was going to have the whole day to himself, in the old house. He asked his wife to put him up some sandwiches, so that he needn't come back for lunch. He kept a few bottles of sherry in his study, in the old chest under the forms. Fortunately he had brought back a great deal of it from his last trip to Spain. It wasn't foresight—Prohibition was then unthinkable—but a lucky accident. He had gone with his innkeeper to an auction, and bought in a dozen dozens of a sherry that went very cheap. He came home by the City of Mexico and got the wine through without duty.
As he was crossing the park with his sandwiches, he met Augusta coming back from Mass.
"Are you still going to the old house, Professor?" she asked reproachfully, her face smiling at him between her stiff black fur collar and her stiff black hat.
"Oh, yes, Augusta, but it's not the same. I miss you. There are never any new dresses on my ladies in the evening now. Won't you come in sometime and deck them out, as a surprise for me? I like to see them looking smart."
Augusta laughed. "You are a funny man, Doctor St. Peter. If anyone else said the things you do to your classes, I'd be scandalized. But I always tell people you don't mean half you say."
"And how do you know what I say to my classes, may I ask?"
"Why, of course, they go out and talk about it when you say slighting things about the Church," she said gravely.
"But, really, Augusta, I don't think I ever do."