They returned to the hotel. He asked for the papers. She sat down by
the side of him with a smile on her lips.
They talked little during dinner. After dinner she mentioned the
servants.
"For heaven's sake, leave the servants alone!" he exclaimed.
"Surely we haven't come here to quarrel!"
"Am I quarrelling?"
"Well, I'm not!"
An awkward pause followed. He wished somebody would come. The children!
Yes! This tete-a-tete embarrassed him, but he felt a pain in his heart
when he thought of the bright hours of yesterday.
"Let's go to Oak Hill," she said, "and gather wild strawberries."
"There are no wild strawberries at this time of the year, it's autumn."
"Let's go all the same."
And they went. But conversation was difficult. His eyes searched for
some object on the roadside which would serve for a peg on which to
hang a remark, but there was nothing. There was no subject which they
hadn't discussed. She knew all his views on everything and disagreed
with most of them. She longed to go home, to the children, to her own
fireside. She found it absurd to make a spectacle of herself in this
place and be on the verge of a quarrel with her husband all the time.
After a while they stopped, for they were tired.
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