'"I do think," Caroline was saying in her most reasonable voice, "that another time...of course, it doesn't matter in the least while we are alone...obviously, it's of no importance to me that you take the last rissole...I'm not the faintest bit hungry, and, if I were, could have had more cooked...but perhaps it would be a bad example to the children if they were here for you just to - without offering it, I mean - to take it as a matter of course. I hate having to say this, but it is a question, I suppose, of principle...after all, we were always agreed that this isn't one of those houses where the man is lord and master and boss and bread-winner, taking everything for granted..."
"He could certainly not do that," Hugo said, tipping the nut-rissole on to Caroline's plate.
She flushed. "My dear Hugo, surely you have not taken offence because I spoke frankly?"
"It is what people do take offence at."
"You know I couldn't eat another thing."
She returned the rissole to his plate.
"And now I could not either," he said, abandoning some spinach as well and putting his knife and fork together. The rissole was back on the dish where it had begun, among the shapes of the other rissoles which had been outlined by cold fat.'
from A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor (Part One, Chapter 1)
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