"Do you mean you won't go?"
"I mean, I won't leave here. I might convoy you to your pet hotel, if you'll wait till I have time. But if you want to go now, you'll have to go alone."
"Bill, sometimes I think I hate you!"
"Never mind. That'll soon settle into a fixed habit—soon as I'm broke."
"You're the most stubborn man I ever saw in my life. No one knows what I have endured from you. Everything must be your way—nothing that I say or do is worth your consideration. You never would listen to me—I know now that you must have been making money on the side, that you never told me about. If you hadn't you never could have acted the fool and kept it up the way you have, buying in worthless stock."
"You didn't find it worthless," Bill could not refrain from reminding her. "You made a good thing out of yours, don't you think? There's not a man in the country can call Parowan stock worthless. What are you kicking about?"
Doris looked him over scornfully. "What a fool you are!" she said. "Beggaring yourself just so you may have the satisfaction of saying that Parowan stock is worth par."
"Ninety cents," Bill corrected her calmly. "I dropped it a bit to-day—shaking loose a few that have been hanging on."
"I suppose," said Doris, "you consider it a great achievement, buying up Parowan. Cornering a worn-out mine!"
Bill reached for the coffeepot, measured out coffee and poured in water from a dented tea-kettle. He was sick of fruitless argument with Doris. She was as she was made, he told himself resignedly. Some persons are unable by nature to see beyond a dollar, and Doris, he considered, was one of them.