Harvey, meanwhile, fearing her inclination to brood over the dark event, tried to behave as though he had utterly dismissed it from his thoughts.  He kept a cheerful countenance, talked much more than usual, and seemed full of health and hope.  As usual between married people, this resolute cheerfulness had, more often than not, an irritating effect upon Alma.  Rolfe erred once more in preferring to keep silence about difficulties rather than face the unpleasantness of frankly discussing them.  One good, long, intimate conversation about Mrs. Carnaby, with unrestricted exchange of views, the masculine and the feminine, with liberal acceptance of life as it is lived, and honest contempt of leering hypocrisies, would have done more, at this juncture, to put healthy tone into Alma’s being than any change of scene and of atmosphere, any medicament or well-meant summons to forgetfulness.  Like the majority of good and thoughtful men, he could not weigh his female companion in the balance he found good enough for mortals of his own sex.  With a little obtuseness to the ‘finer’ feelings, a little native coarseness in his habits towards women, he would have succeeded vastly better amid the complications of his married life.

Troubles of a grosser kind, such as heretofore they had been wonderfully spared, began to assail them during their month in Norfolk.  One morning, about midway in the holiday, Harvey, as he came down for a bathe before breakfast, heard loud and angry voices from the kitchen.  On his return after bathing, he found the breakfast-table very carelessly laid, with knives unpolished, and other such neglects of seemliness.  Alma, appearing with Hughie, spoke at once of the strange noises she had heard, and Harvey gave his account of the uproar.

‘I thought something was wrong,’ said Alma.  ’The cook has seemed in a bad temper for several days.  I don’t like either of them.  I think I shall give them both notice, and advertise at once.  They say that advertising is the best way.’

The housemaid (in her secondary function of parlour-maid) waited at table with a scowl.  The fish was ill fried, the eggs were hard, the toast was soot-smeared.  For the moment Alma made no remark; but half an hour later, when Harvey and the child had rambled off to the sea-shore, she summoned both domestics, and demanded an explanation of their behaviour.  Her tone was not conciliatory; she had neither the experience nor the tact which are necessary in the mistress of a household, and it needed only an occasion such as this to bring out the contemptuousness with which she regarded her social inferiors.  Too well-bred to indulge in scolding or wrangling, the delight of a large class of housewives, Alma had a quiet way of exhibiting displeasure and scorn, which told smartly on the nerves of those she rebuked.  No one could better have illustrated the crucial difficulty of the servant-question, which lies in the fact that women seldom can rule, and all but invariably dislike to be ruled by, their own sex; a difficulty which increases with the breaking-up of social distinctions.