She ignored this. “I’ve got a right to my own home, to have my husband to myself. It isn’t fair to expect me to live in a house full of relatives!”
“Fair! Fair!” he broke in impatiently. “You’re all alike, you women, bleating about what’s fair! Think yourself lucky you’ve got a comfortable home to live in instead of having to rely on Eugene to support you! You’d fare badly if you had!”
“I’d sooner starve in a cottage with Eugene, than go on living here!” she said fiercely.
He laughed. “Ho-ho! I’d like to see you doing it! Take Him off to your cottage, then! You’ll come back soon enough, with your tails between your legs, too!”
She said sullenly: “Why don’t you make Eugene an allowance? It needn’t cost you more than it must cost to keep us both here.”
“Because I don’t want to,” he answered.
She clenched her hands inside her pockets until her nails hurt her. “You think you’ve beaten me, but you haven’t. I’ll never give in to you. I mean to get Eugene out of this house, and away from your beastly influence. You’ve got Ray, and Ingram, and the twins: why must you have my husband too? He belongs to me!”
He made a gesture with one hand. He was a hirsute man, and strong, dark hairs grew over the back of it, and on his chest too, where the top button of his pyjamas had come undone. “Take him, then — but don’t expect me to help you. The impudence of you!”
She said with a good deal of difficulty, because she had much pride: “While you encourage him to hang about here, I can’t take him away. We haven’t enough money, and — all right, if you will have it, he does take the line of least resistance! But if you’d make him a small allowance, so that I could rent a little place in town, and keep him comfortable, I — I — I should be grateful to you!”
His smile showed her that he perfectly understood what an effort it cost her to make such an admission. He filled his glass a third time. “I don’t want your gratitude. I’d sooner keep you on the end of your chain, my lass. I’ve got a sense of humour, d’ye see? It amuses me to see you straining and struggling to break free. Think because I’m tied by the heels I haven’t any power left, don’t you’ You try setting up your will against mine, and see whether I’ve still power to rule my own household!”