My wife and I are in perfect agreement about everything. We are like the
Allied Ministers who meet at Paris; we always "arrive at a complete
understanding" in all matters of policy. When strict economy was enjoined
upon us I moved my desk into the dining-room to save a fire. She made a
summer hat out of a bit of my old Panama, encased in the remnants of an
evening gown. All was well.
I should be giving you a wrong impression altogether if I were to suggest
that there was the slightest difference of opinion between us. I most
solemnly declare that I am as good a patriot as she is. Still, as time goes
on, I do feel a certain uneasiness, a suggestion of a new domestic element
that needs watching.
We are both in it, but the initiative rests with her. She asks me to take
two Belgian refugees and the housemaid and the dog and the laundry-hamper
along with me in the two-seater to the station, to save petrol. Well, I am
willing. She fills the herbaceous border with alternating potatoes and
carnations. Well, I am more than willing. She bottles peas and beans. And I
say to you that I am proud and happy that she should think of these things.
Above all she gets at the very root of the food problem. I should say that
here she has advantages over some, as I belong to the class of husband
known as Easily Fed. She has got hold of a whole sheaf of leaflets from the
War Office or somewhere--"When is a pie not a pie?" "Leave out the egg;"
"How to make something out of something else," etc., etc.; and we feed on
those chiefly. She knows I don't like rabbits, and yet I am well aware that
rabbits are repeatedly insinuated in such forms as not to leave a single
clue. I cannot tell you how I admire and approve. Still it makes me
thoughtful sometimes.
No doubt you will believe that we are being drawn together by sharing these
hardships. Well, yes. In a way. And yet I don't feel easy about it. We are
quite in sympathy, but there is a difference in our point of view. Mine, I
affirm, is the nobler. I economize, although I loathe it; while she, I am
convinced, is beginning to like it. I don't mean to say that she does it on
purpose, but that phrase may give you an idea what I mean. I sometimes
wonder wistfully if the hand that put that ugly new steel contraption at
the back of the fire to save the coal is really the hand that I wooed and
won ten years ago. I see in her the steady growth of an implacable
conscience. In moments of depression I have a horrid feeling that she
always wanted to do this sort of thing and never got a real chance till
now.
We were extraordinarily happy before the War. We were not at all hard up
and we had no compunctions about spending money. But now--I wonder how
long the War will last? What I am afraid of is the formation of habits. I
am already guarding against it by talking about all the things that we are
going to do after the War. She quite agrees with me about them, but she
isn't enthusiastic. I put my claims pretty high. The garden is to be
reconstructed, and I am adding a wing to the house. We are going to travel
first, and I am not sure that we shan't have a new cook. And we are to have
an Airedale and an Axminster, and a Stilton and a new Panama.
As a matter of fact that is all bluff on my part. I only want to have
something in hand to bargain with. If I can ever get back to the _status
quo ante_ I will not ask for annexations.
Well, that is how it is. Most eagerly do I fall in with her latest
suggestion that I should let her clean my flannel suit with benzine (I
don't like the smell of it) instead of getting a new one. Only I live in a
growing fear that the day when peace is signed in Europe will be the signal
for an outbreak of a new form of warfare in our happy home.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Mistress_ (_from upper window_). "WHATEVER ARE YOU DOING
OUT-OF-DOORS AT _THIS_ TIME OF NIGHT, JANE?"
_Romantic Maid_. "ONLY THROWING A FEW CRUMBS TO THE OWLS, MA'AM."]
* * * * *