It was Tanya's standing grievance, and she would deliver herself of it on the slightest provocation, often quite irrelevantly.
After supper she read to him the passage which she regarded as an indorsement of her view upon Maupassant. When she had finished and turned to him a face full of triumphant inquiry, she was rather disappointed by the lukewarm readiness of his surrender.
"Oh, I see. It is rather an interesting point," he remarked lazily.
He was reclining on the stiff carpet-covered lounge in the front room, while she was seated in the rocker, in front of him. It flashed across her mind that such unusual tractability in him might augur some concession to be exacted from her. She flew into a mild little passion in advance, but made no inquiries, and only said, with good-natured sarcasm:—
"Of course, once it is printed in 'Russian Thought,' it is 'rather an interesting point,' but when it was only Tanya who made it, why then it was mere rubbish."
"You know I never said it was rubbish, Tanya," he returned deprecatingly.
After a slight pause, he resumed listlessly:—
"Besides, I am sick of these 'interesting points.' They have been the ruin of us, Tanychka; they eat us up alive, these 'interesting points'—the deuce grab them. If I cared less about 'interesting points'"—he articulated the two words with venomous relish—"and a little more about your future and mine, I might not now have to stick in a button factory."
She listened to him with an amused air, and when he paused, she said flippantly:—
"We have heard it before."