She was furious at me because I’d laughed. “Of course it’s a hard game to beat,” she said. “You can’t beat it. Dr. Parkerdale says that it doesn’t make any difference whether she’s right or wrong, that one mustn’t argue with her. That means you have to give in to her all the time. That means she’s becoming more selfish and spoiled every minute of the time. Her temper is getting more ungovernable. She’s getting more selfish, more—”
“How about Bernard Carter?” I asked. “Does he get along with her?”
“Bernard Carter,” she snorted. “Bernard Carter and his business deal! He’s the man who comes around when Father goes away. She may fool Dad with that business talk, but she doesn’t fool me a darn bit. I–I hate her.”
I observed that I thought Henry Ashbury was quite capable of handling the situation.
“He isn’t,” Alta said. “No man is. She has him hamstrung and hogtied before he starts. If he accuses her of anything, she’ll throw one of her fits and Dr. Parkerdale will come rushing out with the rubber tube he puts around her arm and take her blood pressure... Oh, can’t you see what she’s doing is simply laying the foundation for filing a suit for divorce on the ground of mental cruelty, claiming that Father was so unreasonable and unjust with her that it ran up her blood pressure and ruined her health and kept Dr. Parkerdale from curing her. And she has the doctor all primed to give his testimony. The only thing Father can do is efface himself as much as possible and wait for something to break. That means he has to give in to her... Look here, Donald. Are you pumping me or am I just making a fool out of myself talking too damn much?”
I felt like a heel again, only worse.
She didn’t talk much after that.
Someone called her on the telephone, and she didn’t like the conversation. I could see that much from the expression on her face. After her party had hung up, she telephoned and broke a date.
I went out finally and sat on the sun porch. I felt more like a heel than ever.
After a while she came out and stood looking down at me. I could feel her scorn, even though it was too dark to see the expression in her eyes. “So,” she said, “that’s it, is it?”