He thought he saw his chance then. Turning away with a shrug, he walked to the fireplace and lighted a cigarette.
“Oh, very well!” he said. “If you feel that way about it, all right; but”—he turned suddenly upon her—“you’ll have to get out of here and stay out—do you understand? From this day on you can only enter this house as Mrs. Wilson Crumb, and you can rustle your own dope if you don’t come back—understand?”
She looked at him through narrowed lids. She reminded him of a tigress about to spring, and he backed away.
“Listen to me,” she commanded in slow, level tones. “In the first place, you’re lying to me about your wife getting her divorce. I’d have guessed as much if I hadn’t known, for a hop-head can’t tell the truth; but I do know. You got a letter from your attorney to-day telling you that your wife still insists not only that she never will divorce you, but that she will never allow you a divorce.”
“You mean to say that you opened one of my letters?” he demanded angrily.
“Sure I opened it! I open ’em all—I steam ’em open. What do you expect,” she almost screamed, “from the thing you have made of me? Do you expect honor and self-respect, or any other virtue, in a hype?”
“You get out of here!” he cried. “You get out now—this minute!”
She rose from the bench and came and stood quite close to him.
“You’ll see that I get all the snow I want, if I go?” she asked.
He laughed nastily.