“Puddler,” he answered, with dignity, the look of a hurt animal in his face.
“It’s very well known,” she said, “puddlers don’t fly. Besides it’s too late. We’ve stopped to think. We had to take time to change his clothes. He’s out of a job and has no money. He told me so. I wonder what the wives of puddlers do.”
“Some would envy you your sting,” said John, horrified at what she was doing to Thane. She understood him perfectly.
“But you are immune,” she said. “I have not married you. Or have I? Are you this puddler’s David? What are your rights in him? How come you to suppose that you have rights in me?”
“Tantrums, thank God, and not hysterics,” said John.
“Shall we spend the rest of the night in this way?” she asked. “And what then?”
“I am leaving New Damascus tonight,” said John, pursuing a flash of intuition.
Agnes gave him an incredulous glance.
“So far as I know, forever,” he continued. “This decision is my own. You have nothing to do with it. But if you were also about to leave, perhaps taking the same direction, why shouldn’t we go together, as far as it’s parallel?”
“Who goes or stays, no matter what happens, I shall not be in sight of New Damascus at daybreak,” said Agnes, her face averted from both John and her husband, and she spoke as one making a vow. “So, whatever you do,” she added, “please hurry.”