Man and Maid

"I shall not tell you," defiantly.

"I am very angry with you, Alathea," my voice was stern.

"I don't care!" hers was passionate.

"I think you are very rude."

"You have told me that before--well I am rude then! I will tell you

nothing. I will do nothing but just be your servant to obey orders which

relate to the work I have been engaged for."

I felt so furious I had to lie back in my chair and shut my eye.

"You have a very poor sense of a bargain, if you only keep it in the

letter. Your underneath constant hostility makes everything so

difficult, the inference of your whole attitude toward me, and of

everything you say and do, is that you feel injured, that you have some

grudge against me."

I tried to speak levelly.

"What on earth have I ever done to you except treat you with every

courtesy? Except that one day when you had the baby in your arms and I

was rude, but apologized, and that one other time when I kissed you, and

God knows I was sorry enough afterwards and have regretted it ever

since. What is the reason of your attitude; it is absolutely unfair?"

This seemed to upset her considerably. She hated the idea that she was

thought unfair. It may have made her realize too that she had a

definite sense of injury. She lost her temper, she stamped her scrap of

a foot.

"I hate you!" she burst out. "You and your bargain! I wish I was dead!"

and then she sank into the sofa and covered her face with her hands, and

by the shaking of her shoulders, I saw that she was crying!

If I had been cool enough to think then, I suppose I could have reasoned

that all this was probably most flattering to me, and an extra proof of

her state of mind, but the agitation it had plunged me into made me

unable to balance things, and I too allowed my temper to get the better

of me, and I got up as best I could and seizing my crutch, I walked

towards my bedroom door.

"I shall expect an apology," was all I said, and went in and left her

alone.

If we are to go on fighting like this, life won't be worth living!

I tried to calm myself and went in the window, but the servants came

into the room to make the bed, so I was forced to go back again to the

sitting-room. Alathea had gone into the little salon, I suppose, because

for the same reason, she could not have returned to her room. I sat down

in my chair quite exhausted. I did not feel like reading or doing

anything.