"And you'll always protect me against anyone saying it? They'll believe you, Henry, not me. Promise me to protect me against them, Henry. Promise to protect me against our little Ann Elizabeth ever thinking that of—of her mother."
"Why, Emmy!" he said. "Why, Emmy! I just promise a thousand times—" and could not go on, working his mouth rather foolishly as if he had not teeth and were rubbing empty gums together.
But through her hot gaze of tears she saw and understood and, satisfied, rubbed her cheek against his arm.
The rest is cataclysmic.
Returning home one evening in a nice glow from a January out-of-doors, his mustache glistening with little frozen drops and his hands (he never wore gloves) unbending of cold, Mrs. Jett rose at her husband's entrance from her low chair beside the lamp.
"Well, well!" he said, exhaling heartily, the scent of violet denying the pungency of fish and the pungency of fish denying the scent of violet. "How's the busy bee this evening?"
For answer Mrs. Jett met him with the crescendo yell of a gale sweeping around a chimney.
"Ya-a-ah! Keep out—you! Fish! Fish!" she cried, springing toward him; and in the struggle that ensued the tubing wrenched off the gas lamp and plunged them into darkness. "Fish! I'll fix you! Ya-a-ah!"
"Emmy! For God's sake, it's Henry! Em!"
"Ya-a-ah! I'll fix you! Fish! Fish!"