The Birthplace by Henry James

Gedge not only assented eagerly -- one way _was_ quite enough if it were the right one -- but repeated it, after this conversation, at odd moments, several times over to his wife. "There can only be one way, one way," he continued to remark -- though indeed much as if it were a joke; till she asked him how many more he supposed she wanted. He failed to answer this question, but resorted to another repetition. "There are the facts, the facts," which perhaps, however, he kept a little more to himself, sounding it at intervals in different parts of the house. Mrs. Gedge was full of comment on their clever introductress, though not restrictively save in the matter of her speech, "Me and mother," and a general tone -- which certainly was not their sort of thing. "I don't know," he said, "perhaps it comes with the place, since speaking in immortal verse doesn't seem to come. It must be, one seems to see, one thing or the other.

I daresay that in a few months I shall also be at it -- 'me and the wife."