"Is that her contrariness, or just her Mariness?"
"Whatever it is it's all the thanks _you_ get, and serve you right, too,"
said Mamma.
She went upstairs to persuade Dan that Papa didn't mean it. It was just
his way, and they'd see he would be different to-morrow.
But to-morrow and the next day and the next he was the same. He didn't
actually send Mark and Dan out of the room again, but he tried to pretend
to himself that they weren't there by refusing to speak to them.
"Do you think," Mark said, "he'll keep it up till the last minute?"
He did; even when he heard the sound of Mr. Parish's wagonette in the
road, coming to take Mark and Dan away. They were sitting at breakfast,
trying not to look at him for fear they should laugh, or at Mamma for
fear they should cry, trying not to look at each other. Catty brought in
the cakes, the hot buttered Yorkshire cakes that were never served for
breakfast except on Christmas Day and birthdays. Mary wondered whether
Papa would say or do anything. He couldn't. Everybody knew those cakes
were sacred. Catty set them on the table with a sort of crash and ran out
of the room, crying. Mamma's mouth quivered.
Papa looked at the cakes; he looked at Mamma; he looked at Mark. Mark was
staring at nothing with a firm grin on his face.
"The assuagers of grief," Papa said. "Pass round the assuagers."
The holy cakes were passed round. Everybody took a piece except Dan.