"So—you have—been watching."
"Well, I don't know as I'd put it thataway. Naturally, when I got to town—first thing I did—most natural thing in the world. That's a mighty fine car with a mighty fine-looking boy and a girl brings your—our girl home every afternoon about four. We used to have a family of Grosbeaks down home. Another branch, I reckon."
"O—God!" A malaprop of a tear, too heavy to wink in, came rolling suddenly down Hattie's cheek. "Morton—let—us—live—for God's sake! Please!"
He regarded the clean descent of the tear down Hattie's color-fast cheek and its clear drop into the bosom of her black-taffeta housemaid's dress.
"By Jove! The stuff is color-fast! You've a fortune in that cream if you handle it right, honey."
"My way is the right way for me."
"But it's a woman's way. Incorporate. Manufacture it. Get a man on the job. Promote it!"
"Ah, that sounds familiar. The way you promoted away every cent of your mother's fortune until the bed she died in was mortgaged. One of your wildcat schemes again! Oh, I watched you before I lost track of you in South America—just the way you're watching—us—now! I know the way you squandered your mother's fortune. The rice plantation in Georgia. The alfalfa ranch. The solid-rubber-tire venture in Atlanta. You don't get your hands on my affairs. My way suits me!"
The tumult in her was so high and her panic so like a squirrel in the circular frenzy of its cage that she scarcely noted the bang on the door and the hairy voice that came through.
"All out!"