She had waddled stiffly down the hallway then, in her absurdly high-heeled slippers, leaving a miasma of perfume in the passage. Magnolia had been furious, then amused, then thoughtful, then grateful. In the last few years she had met or seen the wives of professional gamblers. It was strange: they were all quiet, rather sad-faced women, home-loving and usually accompanied by a well-dressed and serious child. Much like herself and Kim, she thought. Sometimes she met them on Ohio Street. She thought she could recognize the wife of a gambler by the look in her face.
Frequently she saw them coming hurriedly out of one of the many pawnshops on North Clark, near the river. The windows of these shops fascinated her. They held, often, such intimate, revealing, and mutely appealing things—a doll, a wedding ring, a cornet, a meerschaum pipe, a Masonic emblem, a Bible, a piece of lace, a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles.
She thought of these things now as she sat so straight and smartly dressed beside Ravenal in the high-yellow cart. She stole a glance at him. The colour was high in his cheeks. His box-cut covert coat with the big pearl buttons was a dashingly becoming garment. In the buttonhole bloomed a great pompon of a chrysanthemum. He looked very handsome. Magnolia’s head came up spiritedly.
“I don’t want to wear the pants. But I would like to have some say-so about things. There’s Kim. She isn’t getting the right kind of schooling. Half the time she goes to private schools and half the time to public and half the time to no school at all—oh, well, I know there aren’t three halves, but anyway . . . and it isn’t fair. It’s because half the time we’ve got money and half the time we haven’t any.”
“Oh, God, here we are, driving out for pleasure——”
“But, Gay dear, you’ve got to think of those things. And so I thought—I wondered—Gay, I’d like to earn some money of my own.”
Ravenal cut the chestnuts sharply with his whip.
“Pooh!” thought Magnolia. “He can’t scare me that way. How like a man—to take it out on the horses just because he’s angry.” She slipped her hand through his arm.
“Don’t! Don’t jerk my arm like that. You’ll have them running away in a minute.”
“I should think they would, after the way you slashed them. Sometimes I think you don’t care about horses—as horses—any more than you do about——” She stopped, aghast. She had almost said, “than you do about me as a wife.” A long breath. Then, “Gay darling, I’d like to go back on the stage. I’d like to act again. Here, I mean. In Chicago.”