Light-Fingered Gentry

by David Graham Phillips

She didn't mean it; she was hardly conscious that she was saying it until the words were out. She grew white and shrank before the damage she knew she must have done. He did not, could not, answer immediately. When he did, it was a release of all that had been poisoning him for months.

"You think that, do you?" he cried. "I might have known! You dare to think that, when you are responsible!"

"That's manly," she retorted, eager to extricate herself by putting him in the wrong.

He strode to her; he was shaking with fury. "We'll not talk about what's manly or womanly. Let's look at the facts. I loved you, and you took advantage of it to ruin my career, to make it impossible for me to work, to drive away my clients. You have taken my reputation, my brain, my energy. And you dare to taunt me! Men have killed women for less."

"Alois!" she sobbed. "Don't frighten me. Don't look—speak—like that! Oh, I'm not responsible for what I say. I know I've been selfish—it's all my fault. But what does anything matter except our happiness? Forgive me. You know why I'm so bad tempered now—so different from my usual self." And the sobs merged into a flood of hysterical tears.

The reference to her condition, to their expectations, softened him, caused his anger at once to begin to change into bitter shame, a shame to be concealed, to eat, acidlike, in and in and make a wound that would never heal, but would grow in venom until it would torture him without ceasing.

"I don't want you to work," she wept. "I want you all to myself. Ah, Alois, some time you'll appreciate my love; you'll realize that love is better than a career. And for you"—sob—"to reproach me"—sob, sob—"when I thought you were as happy as I!" A wild outburst of grief.

And he was consoling her, had her in his arms, was lulling her and himself in the bright waves of the passion which she could always evoke in him, as he in her. Never again did she speak of his dependent position; it always made her flesh creep and chill to remember what she had said. But from that time she was distinctly conscious that he was a dependent—and she no longer respected him. From that time, he clearly recognized his own position. He thought it out, decided to make a bold stand; but he felt he could not begin at once. In her condition she must not be crossed; he must go away with her, since go she must and go alone she could not. He would make a new beginning as soon as the baby was born.

Meanwhile, his office expenses were heavy, and the money he had saved before he was married was gone. He went into debt fast, terrifyingly fast. He borrowed two thousand dollars of Narcisse; he hoped it would last, as usually Amy's bills were all paid by her father. But they were away from Fosdick's house, and she, thinking and knowing nothing about money, continued to spend as usual. He got everything on credit that did not have to be paid for at once; but in spite of all his contriving, when they reached New York again he was really penniless. He went to Narcisse's office; she was out of town. In desperation he borrowed five hundred dollars from his brother-in-law.

Hugo loaned the money as if the transaction were a trifle that was making no impression on him. Like all those who think of nothing but money, he affected to think nothing of it. He noted Alois's nervousness, then his thin and harassed look. "How do Amy and Alois live?" he asked his father.