“Mr. Riatt, what shall I do? The cereal is burning terribly.” “I should think it was,” he said. “I can smell it down here.” He sprang up the stairs and snatched the pot from the stove. “You must have stopped stirring it,” he said. “Oh, I didn’t stir it!” “What did you do?” “You didn’t tell me to stir it.” “I certainly did.” “No, you said just to watch it.” Riatt looked at her. “Well,” he said, “I’ve heard of glances cutting like a knife, but never stirring like a spoon. If I were a really just man,” he went on, “I’d make you eat that burnt mess for your supper, but I’m so absurdly indulgent that I’ll share some of my bacon and biscuits with you.” His tone as well as his words were irritating to one not used to criticism in any form. “I don’t care for that sort of joke,” she said. “I wasn’t aware of having made a joke.” “I mean your attitude as if I were a child that had been naughty.” “It wouldn’t be so bad if you were a child.” “You consider me to blame because that wretched cereal chose to burn?” “Emphatically I do.” “How perfectly preposterous,” said Christine, and a sense of bitter injustice seethed within her. “Why in the world should _I_ be expected to know how to cook?” “I’m a little too busy at the moment to explain it to you,” Riatt answered, “but I promise to take it up with you at a later date.” There was something that sounded almost like a threat in this. She turned away, and walking to the window stood staring out into the darkness. He was really quite a disagreeable young man, she thought. How true it was, that you couldn’t tell what people were like when everything was going smoothly. She wondered if he would always be like that--trying to keep one up to one’s duty and making one feel stupid and ignorant about the merest trifles. “Well, this rich meal is ready,” he said presently. She turned around. The table was set--she couldn’t help wondering where he had found the kitchen knives and forks--the bacon was sizzling, the tin of biscuits open, and the coffee bubbling and gurgling in its glass retort. She sat down and began to eat in silence, but as she did so, she studied him furtively. She was used to many different kinds of masculine bad temper; her father’s irritability whenever anything affected his personal comfort: and from other men all forms of jealousy and hurt feelings. But this stern indifference to her as a human being was something a little different. She decided on her method. “Oh, dear,” she said, “this meal couldn’t be much drearier if we were married, could it?” “Except,” he returned, unsmilingly, “that then it would be one of a long series.” “Not as far as I’m concerned,” she answered. “I should leave you on account of your bad temper.” “If I hadn’t first left you on account of--” “Of burning the cereal?” “Of being so infernally irresponsible about it.”