One day I had forgotten to go to luncheon and, some time after two, Torchido being absent to lecture at a young ladies' seminary, Mr. Ember came bringing me a tray himself.
"If any one was to do that you ought to have let me," I cried.
"Why?" he demanded. "Now, why? You mean because you're a woman!"
"Yes," I admitted, "I suppose that's what I did mean."
"You ought to be ashamed of that," he said, "you cave-woman. I don't believe you can cook, anyway."
"No," I owned, "I can't cook. And I don't want to cook."
"Yet you automatically assume the rôle the moment it presents itself," he charged. "It's always amazing. A man will pick up a woman's handkerchief, help her up a step which she can get up as well as he, walk on the outside of the walk to protect her from lord knows what—and yet the minute that a dish rattles anywhere, he retires, in content and lets her do the whole thing. We're a wondrous lot."
"Give us another million years," I begged. "We're coming along."
He served me, and ate something himself. And this was the first time that we had broken bread together since that morning at the Dew Drop Inn, when I had ordered salt pork and a piece of pie. Obviously, this was the time to tell him.... My heart began to beat. I played with the moment, thinking as I had thought a hundred times, how I would tell him. Suppose I said: "Do you imagine that this is the first time we have eaten together?" Or, "Do you remember the last time we sat at table?" Or, "Have you ever wondered what became of Cosma Wakely?" I discarded them all, and just then I heard him saying: