“I can't.”
“You mean you won't?”
“Very well, Carter, I won't. It is absolutely impossible. I told you to look out for Gay—to make strong love to her—not to go blundering like a bull in a china shop.”
Henrietta had this every day. Freeman was even worse. He accused her of having told Bruce some lie, of course, but the worst was his insistent demand for money. He must have money. There must be some way in which she could get it, he said.
“There's not,” she told him. “How can I get it?”
Freeman did not know, but he knew he had to have money. He was as ugly about it as possible, worse than he had ever been.
“You get me some money,” he said brutally. “That's all I want from you—some money.”
“Freeman, I can't get any. If I could get it I would not give it to you. Presently we will have to leave this house, and wherever we go next we have to pay in advance. And I must give something to Johnnie Alberson. I'm afraid of him. I must pay him something. I don't like the way he acts.”
“Let him act,” said Freeman scornfully.
All in all Henrietta was in no state of mind to think of any troubles except her own, and poor Lem was left to his own resources. Or to his one resource. That one resource was his father, and his father, unfortunately, was having his own troubles. He was having difficulty in preserving that calmness of mind and subjugation of appetite necessary to carry on the business of a successful saint.