A hot dinner on Sundays was a little distinguishing elegance common to this house and many others.

Early in married life Soames had laid down the rule: 'The servants must give us hot dinner on Sundays--they've nothing to do but play the concertina.' The custom had produced no revolution.

For--to Soames a rather deplorable sign--servants were devoted to Irene, who, in defiance of all safe tradition, appeared to recognise their right to a share in the weaknesses of human nature.
The happy pair were seated, not opposite each other, but rectangularly, at the handsome rosewood table; they dined without a cloth--a distinguishing elegance--and so far had not spoken a word.
Soames liked to talk during dinner about business, or what he had been buying, and so long as he talked Irene's silence did not distress him.
This evening he had found it impossible to talk.

The decision to build had been weighing on his mind all the week, and he had made up his mind to tell her.
His nervousness about this disclosure irritated him profoundly; she had no business to make him feel like that--a wife and a husband being one person.

She had not looked at him once since they sat down; and he wondered what on earth she had been thinking about all the time.