A certain kind of no-nonsense partner might well tell us sternly to grow up, complain about us to their friends and make hasty moves to end the relationship.
I felt I uttered my explanations awkwardly; the master frowned. " It is nothing, is it, Ellen Dean? " he said sternly. " You shall account more clearly for keeping me ignorant of this! "
" What is it? " asked the countess, startled; but seeing by her daughter's face that it was only mischief, she shook a finger at her sternly with a threatening and forbidding movement of her head.
We could hear what the TV viewers couldn't hear, and that - those were the words of a very angry-looking Will Smith sternly yelling at Chris Rock with the F word to stop talking about his wife.
And he looked sternly across the table at his little son, who felt so ashamed of himself that he hung his head down, and grew quite scarlet, and began to cry into his tea.