The man betrayed his surprise. She was obliged to repeat the order.
“What does a taxi to—to our place cost?” demanded Harvey, feeling in his pocket. 116
“Never mind,” she snapped. “I’ll pay for it.”
“No, you won’t,” he asserted. “I raised seventeen dollars yesterday on the watch mother gave me. It’s my own money, Nellie, remember that.”
Rachel was plainly amazed when the couple walked into the apartment. The two at once resumed the conversation they had carried on so vigorously in the taxicab on the way up from downtown. Nellie did not remove her hat, sharply commanding Rachel to leave the room.
“No,” she said, “she simply has to go to the convent. She’ll be safe there, no matter how things turn out for you and me, Harve, I insist on that.”
“Things are going to turn out all right for us, Nellie,” he protested, a plaintive note in his voice. It was easily to be seen which had been the dominating force in the ride home.
“Now, you’ve got to be reasonable, Harve,” she said, firmly. “We can’t go on as we have been going. Something’s just got to happen.”
“Well, doggone it, haven’t I said that I’ll agree to your trip to Europe? I won’t put a 117 stop to that. I see your point clearly. The managers think it wise for you to do a bit of studying abroad. I can see that. I’m not going to be mean. Three months’ hard work over there will get you into grand-opera sure. But that has nothing to do with Phoebe. She can go to Blakeville with me, and then when you come back next fall I’ll have a job here in New York and we’ll––”
“Don’t talk foolishness,” she blurted out. “You’ve said that three or four times. First you wanted me to go back to Blakeville to live. You insisted on it. What do you think I am? Why, I wouldn’t go back to Blakeville if Heaven was suddenly discovered to be located there instead of up in the sky. That’s settled. No Blakeville for me. Or Phoebe either. Do you suppose I’m going to have that child grow up like—like”—she changed the word and continued—“like a yap?”