"It's going to rain," I said.
"Let it," said Auriol unconcerned.
Then began as dreary an evening as I ever have spent.
We dined, long before anybody else, in a tempest of rain which sent down the thermometer Heaven knows how many degrees. Half-way through dinner we were washed from the terrace into the empty dining-room. There was thunder and lightning ad libitum.
"A night like this--it's absurd," said I.
"The absurder the better," she replied. "You stay at home, Tony dear. You're a valetudinarian. I'll look after myself."
But this could not be done. I have my obstinacies as mulish as other people's.
"If you go, I go."
"As you have, according to your pampered habit, bought a car from now till midnight, I don't see how we can fail to keep dry and warm."
I had no argument left. Of course, I hate to swallow an early and rapid dinner. One did such things in the war, gladly dislocating an elderly digestion in the service of one's country. In peace time one demands a compensating leisure. But this would be comprehensible only to a well-trained married woman. My misery would have been outside Auriol's ken. I meekly said nothing. The world of young women knows nothing of its greatest martyrs.