remarked: 'You didn't kiss me when you came in.'

It was a custom to which I was determined to cling with grim
resolution. If I allowed his treatment of me to become too casual we
might continue to drift apart even when we had some one to do the
washing-up.

Henry came over to me and bestowed a labial salute. It is the only
adequate description I can give of the performance. Then I went to the
kitchen and got out the cookery-book.

It is a remarkable thing that I am never able to cook anything without
the aid of the book. Even if I prepare the same dish seven times a
week I must have the printed instructions constantly before me, or I am
lost. This is especially strange, because I have a retentive memory
for other things. My mind is crammed with odd facts retained from
casual reading. If you asked me, the date of the Tai-ping Rebellion
(though you're not likely to) I could tell you at once that it
originated in 1850 and was not suppressed until 1864, for I remember
reading about it in a dentist's waiting-room when I was fifteen. Yet
although I prepared scrambled eggs one hundred times in six months
(Henry said it was much oftener than that) I had to pore over the
instructions as earnestly when doing my 'century' as on the first
occasion.

The subsequent meal was taken in silence. The hay-fever from which I
am prone to suffer at all seasons of the year was particularly
persistent that evening. A rising irritability, engendered by leathery
eggs and fostered by Henry's expression, was taking possession of me.
Quite suddenly I discovered that the way he held his knife annoyed me.