“Maybe he didn't want to,” she flashed back. “Did ye get out of him whose fault it was?”
Felix, whose remarks had been addressed to the red-hot coals in the stove, glanced quickly toward Kitty, but made no answer.
“Ye don't know, that's it, and so ye don't say I'll tell ye that it's the man's fault more'n half the time.”
“And what makes you think so, Mistress Kitty?” he asked, trying to speak casually, not daring to look at her for fear she would detect the tremor on his lips, wondering all the time at her interest in the subject.
“It ain't for thinkin', Mr. O'Day, it's just seein' what goes on every day, and it sets me crazy. If a man's got gumption enough to make a girl love him well enough to marry him, he ought to know enough to keep it goin' night and day—if he don't want her to forget him. Half of 'em—poor souls!—are as ignorant as unborn babes, and don't know any more what's comin' to them than a chicken before its head's cut off. She wakes up some mornin' after they've been married a year or two and finds her man's gone to work without kissin' her good-by—when he was nigh crazy before they were married if he didn't get one every ten minutes. The next thing he does is to stay out half the night, and when she is nigh frightened to death, and tells him so with her eyes streamin', instead of comfortin' her, he tells her she ought to have better sense, and why didn't she go to sleep and not worry, that he was of age and could take care of himself—when all the time she is only lovin' him and pretty near out of her mind lest he gets hurted. And last he gets to lyin' as to where he HAS been—maybe it's the lodge, or a game in a back room, or somethin' ye can't talk about—anyhow, he lies about it, and then she finds it out, and everything comes tumblin' down together, and the pieces are all over the floor. That runs on for a while, and pretty soon in comes a dandy-lookin' chap and tells her she's an abused woman—and she HAS been—and he begins pickin' up the scraps and piecin' them together, tellin' her all the time the pretty things the first man told her and which, fool-like, she believes over agin, and then one fine day she skips off and the husband goes round, tearin' his hair with shame or shakin' his fist with rage, and says she broke up his home, and if she ever sets foot on his doorstep again he'll set the dogs on her, or let her starve before he'd give her a crumb. Don't it make you laugh? It does me. And you should see 'em swell round and air their troubles when most everybody knows just what's happened from the beginnin'! If it was any of my business, I'd let out and tell 'em so.
“What my John knows, I know; and what I know, he knows. There's never been a time, and there ain't one now, when I'm beat out and my bones are hangin' stiff in me—and I get that way sometimes even now—that I don't go to John and say, 'John, dear, get yer arms around me and hold me tight, I'm that tired,' and down goes everything, and he's got my head on his shoulder and pattin' my cheeks, and up I get all made over new, and him too. That's the way we get on, and that's the way they all ought to get on if—”
She paused, stretching her neck as if for more air.
“God save me! Will ye hear me run on? And ye sittin' there drinkin' it all in, not known' a word about the women and carin' less. Ye've got to forgive me, for I'm like John's alarm-clock in this wife business, and when I'm wound up I keep strikin' until I run down. Whew! What a heat I got myself into! Now go on, Mr. O'Day. What'll I pay him, and when's he comin?”
Felix waved his hand deprecatingly. “And so you never think, Mistress Kitty, that it may be the woman's fault?”
“Yes, sometimes it is. Faults on both sides, maybe. If it's the woman's fault, it always begins when she lets her man do all the work. Look up and down 'The Avenue' here! Every wife is helpin' her husband in his business, and every wife knows as much about it as the man does. That ain't the way up around Central Park. Half of 'em ain't out of bed till purty nigh lunch-time. I've heard 'em all talk; and worse yet, they glory in it. What can ye expect when there ain't five of 'em to a block who knows whether her husband has made a million in the past year or whether he's flat broke, except what he tells her? No wonder, when trouble comes, they shift husbands as they do their petticoats, and try it over again with a new one!”