He was so astounded that he couldn’t speak. He stared at her flushed and furious face, his own perfectly blank. Then, very slowly, the color began to rise in his lean cheeks.
He was a man slow to anger, a man of self-control and sang froid; but when his temper was aroused, it was a bad one. His wife was secretly horrified at what she had done. She hadn’t meant to do it. She knew he was only trying to be funny. She was ashamed and alarmed.
“What made you do that?” he asked slowly.[Pg 45]
“Because I’m sick and tired of being called a cook, that’s why!” she answered valiantly.
“Well, you’d better apologize!” he said.
“Well, I won’t!” she answered promptly. “I’m glad I did it. I’m just sick and tired of—of all this—shut up here alone all day long!”
“All right!” said Brecky. “All right!”
She looked at him steadily for a moment. Then she began, very deliberately, to dry her hands. He turned away and walked back to his books, but she saw that his hands were clenched, and she knew that he was filled with fury. She was elated, and she was sorry.
He began figuring, but he grasped his pencil so fiercely that it broke, and he had to get up and look for another.
He saw Kathleen standing before the little mirror she had hung up on the wall, dressed in her fur coat and engaged in pinning on her hat.