They had
quarrelled for about five minutes over those wretched matches, and
then for another ten because he said that women had no sense of
humour, and she wanted to know how he knew. After that there had
cropped up the last quarter's gas-bill, and that by a process still
mysterious to him had led them into the subject of his behaviour on
the night of the Hockey Club dance. By an effort of almost
supernatural self-control he had contrived at length to introduce the
subject he had come home half an hour earlier than usual on purpose
to discuss. It didn't interest her in the least. What she was full
of by this time was a girl named Arabella Jones. She got in quite a
lot while he was vainly trying to remember where he had last seen the
damned girl. He had just succeeded in getting back to his own topic
when the Cuddiford girl from next door dashed in without a hat to
borrow a tuning-fork. It had been quite a business finding the
tuning-fork, and when she was gone they had to begin all over again.
They had quarrelled about the drawing-room carpet; about her sister
Florrie's birthday present; and the way he drove the motor-car. It
had taken them over an hour and a half, and rather than waste the
tickets for the theatre, they had gone without their dinner. The
matter of the cold chisel still remained to be thrashed out.
It had occurred to me that through the medium of the drama I might
show how the domestic quarrel could so easily be improved.
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