"You have been abusing Lottie Nelson a good deal lately. I wish you would stop it." He rose and stood with one hand on the table. Alice was slipping her rings into the cup in front of her and she dropped in the last with some spirit.
"I will stop it. And I hope you will never speak of her again. I certainly never will entertain her again under any circumstances," she exclaimed.
"You will entertain her the next time I tell you to."
Alice turned quite white. "Have you anything else to say to me?"
Her very restraint enraged him. "Only that if you try to ride your high horse with me," he replied, "I will send you back to St. Louis some fine day."
"Is that all?"
"That is all. And if you think I don't mean what I say, try it sometime." As he spoke he pushed the chair in which he had been sitting roughly aside.
Alice rose to her feet. "I despise your threats," she said, choking with her own words. "I despise you. I can't tell you how I despise you." Her heart beat rebelliously and she shook in every limb; expressions that she would not have known for her own fell stinging from her lips. "You have bullied me for the last time. I have stood your abuse for five years. It will stop now. You will do the cringing and creeping from now on. That woman never shall sit down at a table with me again, not if you beg it of me on your knees. You are a cowardly wretch; I know you perfectly; you never were anything else. I have paid dearly for ever believing you a man." Her contempt burned the words she uttered. "Now drive me one step further," she sobbed wildly, "if you dare!"
She snapped out the light above her head with an angry twist. Another light shone through the open door of her sleeping-room and through this door she swiftly passed, slamming it shut and locking it sharply behind her.
MacBirney had never seen his wife in such a state. He was surprised; but there could be no mistake. Her blood was certainly up.