She opened the first long drawer with a quivering intake of breath and pulled out a shirt-waist, another, and yet another, and a coarse white petticoat with a large-holed embroidery flounce. Then she dragged a suit-case, which was wavy like the mirror, through the blur of her tears, out from under the bed; and while she fumbled with the lock the door behind her opened, and her heart rose in her throat with the sudden velocity of an express elevator shooting up a ten-story shaft.
In the dresser mirror, and without turning her head or gaining her feet, she looked into the eyes of her husband.
"Pussy-cat!" he said, and came toward her with his teeth flashing like Carrara marble in sunlight.
She sprang to her feet and backed against the dresser.
"Don't! Don't you come near me!"
"You don't mean that, Goldie."
She shivered in her scorn.
"Don't you come near me! I came—to get my things."
"Oh!" he said, and tossed his hat on the bed and peeled off his coat. "Help yourself, kiddo. Go as far as you like."
She fell to tearing at the contents of her drawer without discrimination, cramming them into her bag and breathing furiously, like a hare in the torture of the chase. The color sprang out in her cheeks, and her eyes took fire.