"Isn't it quite true that I love you?" she asked lightly. "What an ungrateful boy! So long as we have a good cook, what matters anything? I began quite to enjoy my own romance. I felt like the Lady of Lyons, and nearly told her about the horrid home to which you took me. I said that the idea of a French cook was all mine. You had literally starved me, because you have been brought up to think corned-beef and cabbage the truest luxury." "I think it _most_ unnecessary, Letitia," I said emphatically, "to make me out a boor--to paint me in such colors to a cook. I should never have believed--" "I _had_ to put finishing touches," she declared. "Don't you see, Archie, that it was important to follow up the gold plates with something dramatic? What does it matter to you how she regards you? As long as she is a good cook and behaves herself, surely you don't care what she thinks of you. Moreover, though she _may_ look upon you as low, she considers _me_ as a sort of Lady Clara Vere de Vere, most aristocratic and well worth working for. Isn't that enough, Archie? Oh, dear, I _wish_ I could induce you to be awfully coarse and disgusting, before her! It would be such a help." I rose, and walked away, thoroughly put out. "You are carrying the joke too far!" I said sullenly. "Oh, what a silly, sensitive boy it is!" she sighed. "And oh, how it cares what even its cook thinks of it! I did all this for your sake, Archie. You can imagine that I shouldn't select a low husband from choice. I merely thought that it made the whole story hang together. That's all. Of course, you can be yourself if you prefer it. Madame de Lyrolle can always think that I am refining you, and that you are gradually acquiring decency." "I won't have it, Letitia," I interrupted furiously; "I don't see the fun. I positively refuse to be belittled in my own house." "Archie, you're almost too silly to kiss," she said, kissing me, "and I don't think you deserve to be kissed, either. Here have I been cudgeling my brains all day to devise means to retain a cook that will please you! I have been bullied, and humiliated, and forced to lie, and falsify, and perjure my soul. And, after I have been through it all, and emerged safely on the other side, weak, but victorious, you sulk, because--because--you don't see the fun! There _is_ no fun to see. Nobody knows that better than I do. Come, sir, apologize at once, to your lawful wife, or I shall immediately go and tell Madame that you are of noble birth, and that I've been guying her--that you are really quite obstreperously decent. Come, Archie, your apology, please." I was slightly mollified, but--"Remember, Letitia," I insisted, "I decline to be low." She laughed tantalizingly. "You needn't be _too_ low," she said, "just a little bit 'off' will do. Even if you only promise to tuck your table-napkin under your chin and look greedy, I shall be satisfied. Apologize to me, or off I trot to Madame--" and she rose to go.