fter her with venomous quietness.

The refutation would have to stand over; it was spoiled now, and the
delicious sarcasm that was on his pen's tip was lost irrevocably. He
blotted a sentence in the middle, put his pen in a wet sponge, and
opened his door. He jerked it savagely open to express his attitude
of mind towards interruption. His "_What_ is it?" as he did so was in
keeping with the door-jerk.

"I can speak of nothing to you if you are so _tetchy_"--a word said
spitefully, with a jerk explanatory of its meaning. "Another time will
do better, now. I prefer to wait."

When these two played at the domestic game of exasperate-my-neighbour,
the temper lost by the one was picked up by the other, and added to
his or her pack. It was so often her pack that there must have been an
unfair allotment of knaves in it when dealt--you know what that means
in beggar-my-neighbour? On this occasion Mrs. Wilson won heavily.
It was not every day that she had a chance of showing her great
forbearance and self-restraint, on the stairs to an audience of a man
in leather kneecaps who was laying a new drugget in the passage, and
a model of discretion with a dustpan, whose self-subordination was
beyond praise; her daughter Athene in the passage below inditing her
son Egerton for a misappropriation of three-and-fivepence; and a faint
suspicion of Laetitia's bedroom door on the jar, for her to listen
through, above.

It wasn't fair on the Professor, though; for even before he exploded,
his lady-wife had had ample opportunity of reconnoitring the
battle-field, and, as it were, negotiating with auxiliaries, by a show
of gentle sweetness which had the force of announcement that she was
being misunderstood elsewhere. But she would bear it, conscious of
rectitude. Now, the Professor didn't know there was any one within
hearing; so he snapped, and she bit him _sotto voce_, but raised a meek
voice to follow:

"Another time will be better. I prefer to wait." This was all the
public heard of her speech. But she went into the library.

"What do you want to speak to me about?" Thus the Professor, remaining
standing to enjoin the temporary character of the interview; to
countercheck which the lady sank in an armchair with her back to the
light. Both she and Laetitia conveyed majesty in swoops--filled up
_fauteuils_--could motion humbler people to take a seat beside them.
"Tishy's Goody runs into skirts--so does _she_ if you come to that!"
was