He had never criticized her then. He had not been doing so well in business. They had lived in a tiny house in Brooklyn, with only old Madge to help; and he had come home there at the end of the day like a soul to Paradise. He remembered how he used to open the door with his latchkey and go in; and no matter how quiet he was, she would always hear him.
“It’s himself!” she would call to Madge, with the trace of brogue that never quite left her. “Put the dinner on the table, Madge darlin’!”
Then she would come running to him, fling her arms around him, and draw his head down on her breast.
“You’re tired, my heart’s darlin’! There! Don’t you talk! Come in and see what Madge and I have got for you!”
“I’ve got to wash, Katherine.”
“Wash in the kitchen, so you’ll not have to go upstairs, and you so tired, my dearest!”
But he never would wash in the kitchen.
Then they would have dinner, old Madge joining in the conversation as she waited on the table. Katherine had spoiled Madge from the start, calling her “darling,” and sitting in the kitchen to talk with her; but still, how Madge could cook!
After dinner people would usually come in—friends of Katherine’s, whom he did not much like, theatrical people, some of them charming, some of them queer old friends whom she would not abandon. To show her husband that he was supremely important, that he was not left out, she would sit on the arm of his chair, with her hand on his shoulder, bending now and then and kissing the top of his head.
“Talk now, Lew darlin’!” she would say. “Listen now, will you, to what Lew’s got to say!”