Part 36 (1/2)
He laughed at her--the loud, coarse Josh Craig outburst ”You're stark mad on the subject of class distinctions, aren't you?” said he ”You'll learn so as you would on an atten-posts in the open sea Your kind of people are like the children that build forts out of sand at the seashore Along co for me to abandon my career and become a rich nonentity in New York?”
His tone was distinctly offensive ”I don't look at it in that way,”
said she coldly ”Really, I care nothing about it” And she resu of her letter
”Do you expect ry--”do you expect iven the subject of our future a thought?”
She continued reading Such a question in such a tone called for the rebuke of an ignoring silence Also, deep down in her nature, dohere the rock foundations of courage should have been but were not, there had begun an o
”You knohat my salary is?”
”You just mentioned it”
”You know it's to be only five hundred dollars a year ht thousand” She was gazing dreamily out toward the purple horizon, seemed as far as its ht out hoere to live on that su but s--ought to have thought of theue, faint sht up rather carelessly--I suppose some people would call it badly--and--”
”You take hly
She elevated her eyebrows
”I wish I had a quarter for every roeen your people and your grandmother on the subject of money I wish I had a dollar for every row you and she have had about it”
He again vented his boisterous laugh; her nerves had not been so rasped since her wedding day ”Coht up differently froar to you in many ways But because I show you I appreciate those differences, don't iine I'm an utter ass And I certainly should be if I didn't know that your people are hury now She felt she had gone just the one short step too far in her aristocratic assumptions
He went on in the tone of one who confidently expects that there will be no more nonsense: ”When you married me you had some sort of idea hoe'd live”
”I assus or you'd not have s to herself she couldn't keep cool His manner, his words were so infla into the e--high ground; she descended to his level
”You knew the sort of woman I was,” she pursued ”You undertook the responsibility I assuh to fulfill it”
He felt quite at home with her now ”And you?” rasped he ”What responsibility did YOU undertake?”
She caught her breath, flamed scarlet
”Now let us hear ife means in the dictionary of a lady Come, let's hear it!”
She was silent
”I' What do you think it means to be a wife?”
Still she could think of no answer