This was a hit below the belt. He wanted to reply, wanted to annihilate
her, but he restrained himself and remained silent.

"Don't you remember?" she asked, goading him.

"No," he replied. "You mistook my meaning. Really, I can't understand it,
I usually make myself quite clear; after all, I'm accustomed to explaining
to children."

Another foul. Mrs. Molie said no more, merely smiling patiently.

"I can only say that my opinion is diametrically opposed to yours," the
lawyer repeated. "But I did think," he went on, "that this was one thing I
knew something about, however...."

Mrs. Molie got up and went out with her head bent, seemingly on the point
of bursting into tears. The Associate Master sat still for a moment, and
then followed her, whistling and putting on as brave a manner as though he
felt quite easy in his mind.

"What's your opinion?" asked Mrs. Brede, turning to the doyen of the
company, namely myself.

And as becomes a man of settled years, I replied:

"Probably there has been a little exaggeration on both sides."

Everybody agreed with this. But I could never have acted as a mediator,
for I thought the Associate Master was right. In one's early seventies,
one still has many pathetically young ideas.