“She does. I mean she did. But she couldn't come. She broke her leg—fell off the stepladder where she was three days ago. So I had to do it. And to-day, someway, everything went wrong. I burned me, and I cut me, and I used two sodas with not any cream of tartar, and I should think I didn't know anything, not anything!” And down went Billy's head into the pillows again in another burst of sobs.
With gentle yet uncompromising determination, Bertram gathered his wife into his arms and carried her to the big chair. There, for a few minutes, he soothed and petted her as if she were a tired child—which, indeed, she was.
“Billy, this thing has got to stop,” he said then. There was a very inexorable ring of decision in his voice.
“What thing?”
“This housework business.”
Billy sat up with a jerk.
“But, Bertram, it isn't fair. You can't—you mustn't—just because of to-day! I can do it. I have done it. I've done it days and days, and it's gone beautifully—even if they did say I couldn't!”
“Couldn't what?”
“Be an e-efficient housekeeper.”
“Who said you couldn't?”