“Don’t cry!” he said kindly—the more so as the two editors had just gone out, in discreet silence.
“I can’t help it!” said she. “My whole life is ruined. You don’t know—oh, you don’t know what a beast I’ve been! And now—now I’ve lost Arthur!”
“Who is Arthur?” Edward asked sympathetically.
“My husband,” said she. The tears were raining down her cheeks. “My dear, kind, wonderful, darling husband! I wanted to punish him, and frighten him, and I ran away. We had a quarrel. My life is ruined, and all because of a penny!”
“A penny?”
“Yes. Arthur said the two sides were called heads and tails, and I said they were called odds and evens. I know he was wrong, but why didn’t I give in? Oh, why didn’t I give in? Both our lives ruined! He’s frightfully jealous. Hell never forgive this—and for a trifle like that!”
“I—” said Edward, and stopped. His face, too, had grown pale. “Ours was about a cat—Mildred’s cat,” he went on. “It got up a tree, and she wanted me to go next door and get a ladder and get it down. I told her it could get down by itself when it was ready. She—”
“How cruel of you!” interrupted his companion.
“It was not cruel,” asserted Edward.
“It was! If you loved Mildred, you’d get dozens of ladders for her.”