They have passed
through all the customary stages, and are planning, with exaggerated
calm, arrangements for the separation which each now feels to be
inevitable, when a knock comes to the front-door, and there enters a
mutual friend.
Their hasty attempts to cover up the traces of mental disorder with
which the atmosphere is strewed do not deceive him. There has been,
let us say, a ripple on the waters of perfect agreement. Come! What
was it all about?
"About!" They look from one to the other. Surely it would be
simpler to tell him what it had NOT been about. It had been about
the parrot, about her want of punctuality, about his using the
butter-knife for the marmalade, about a pair of slippers he had lost
at Christmas, about the education question, and her dressmaker's
bill, and his friend George, and the next-door dog -
The mutual friend cuts short the catalogue. Clearly there is nothing
for it but to begin the quarrel all over again; and this time, if
they will put themselves into his hands, he feels sure he can promise
victory to whichever one is in the right.
Elvira--she has a sweet, impulsive nature--throws her arms around
him: that is all she wants. If only Adolphus could be brought to
see! Adolphus grips him by the hand. If only Elvira would listen to
sense!
The mutual friend--he is an old stage-manager--arranges the scene:
Elvira in easy-chair by fire with crochet.
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