The silence continued. As a rule Lady Anne\u2019s displeasure became articulate and markedly voluble after four minutes of introductory muteness. Egbert seized the milk-jug and poured some of its contents into Don Tarquinio\u2019s saucer; as the saucer was already full to the brim an unsightly overflow was the result. Don Tarquinio looked on with a surprised interest that evanesced into elaborate unconsciousness when he was appealed to by Egbert to come and drink up some of the spilt matter. Don Tarquinio was prepared to play many r\u00f4les in life, but a vacuum carpet-cleaner was not one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDon\u2019t you think we\u2019re being rather foolish?\u201d said Egbert cheerfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If Lady Anne thought so she didn\u2019t say so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI dare say the fault has been partly on my side,\u201d continued Egbert, with evaporating cheerfulness. \u201cAfter all, I\u2019m only human, you know. You seem to forget that I\u2019m only human.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He insisted on the point, as if there had been unfounded suggestions that he was built on Satyr lines, with goat continuations where the human left off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bullfinch recommenced its air from Iphig\u00e9nie en Tauride<\/em>. Egbert began to feel depressed. Lady Anne was not drinking her tea. Perhaps she was feeling unwell. But when Lady Anne felt unwell she was not wont to be reticent on the subject. \u201cNo one knows what I suffer from indigestion\u201d was one of her favourite statements; but the lack of knowledge can only have beencaused by defective listening; the amount of information available on the subject would have supplied material for a monograph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Evidently Lady Anne was not feeling unwell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Egbert began to think he was being unreasonably dealt with; naturally he began to make concessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI dare say,\u201d he observed, taking as central a position on the hearth-rug as Don Tarquinio could be persuaded to concede him, \u201cI may have been to blame. I am willing, if I can thereby restore things to a happier standpoint, to undertake to lead a better life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He wondered vaguely how it would be possible. Temptations came to him, in middle age, tentatively and without insistence, like a neglected butcher-boy who asks for a Christmas box in February for no more hopeful reason that than he didn\u2019t get one in December. He had no more idea of succumbing to them than he had of purchasing the fish-knives and fur boas that ladies are impelled to sacrifice through the medium of advertisement columns during twelve months of the year. Still, there was something impressive in this unasked-for renunciation of possibly latent enormities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lady Anne showed no sign of being impressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Egbert looked at her nervously through his glasses. To get the worst of an argument with her was no new experience. To get the worst of a monologue was a humiliating novelty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI shall go and dress for diner,\u201d he announced in a voice into which he intended some shade of sternness to creep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the door a final access of weakness impelled him to make a further appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAren\u2019t we being very silly?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA fool\u201d was Don Tarquinio\u2019s mental comment as the door closed on Egbert\u2019s retreat. Then he lifted his velvet forepaws in the air and leapt lightly on to a bookshelf immediately under the bullfinch\u2019s cage. It was the first time he had seemed to notice the bird\u2019s existence, but he was carrying out a long-formed theory of action with the precision of mature deliberation. The bullfinch, who had fancied himself something of a despot, depressed himself of a sudden into a third of his normal displacement; then he fell to a helpless wing-beating and shrill cheeping. He had cost twenty-seven shillings without the cage, but Lady Anne made no sign of interfering. She had been dead for two hours.<\/p>\n\n\n Author: Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) [Full text]<\/p>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/divider2.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nBibliographic data<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Title: The Reticence of Lady Anne
Published in: Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches (1910)<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Saki](\"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Saki-Hector-Hugh-Munro-150x150.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"