“You won’t see me again if you do. I can up and off when I like. We’re not married, remember.”
“You leave me nothing to say. I’ve learned a good deal from the people in the mews, but not their way of quarreling.”
He had been irritated into the reproof and was sorry as soon as it was uttered. She was furious. Never before had she lost her temper with him, though they had had wordy passages. Now she turned and rent him:
“I don’t believe you’re a man at all, and I don’t believe you’ve got a heart. Squabble, you call it? I wish you would. You sit there with your fishy eyes staring at nothing, thinking, thinking, thinking. What’s the good of it all? Who’s right and who’s wrong? What’s it matter? If you loved me I’d be right whatever I did. Go on! Look at me! You don’t know me, don’t you? I’m the woman you’ve been living with these last two years. That’s who I am. If you’re sick of me, why don’t you say so? I’m no lady, thank God. I do know when I’m not wanted. I’m not going to stay with any man on God’s earth when he doesn’t want me. I’ve nearly left you time and time again, when you’ve looked at me like that.”
He brushed his hand across his eyes. He was feeling sick and dazed. She looked so ugly.
She went on:
“I’ve put up with things because of you, I have. You don’t know what people say, or care. You won’t never know what they say, you’re that blooming innocent, thinking everybody means well. I’ve put up with things, and been glad of ’em, and I’ve put up with things from you that I couldn’t have believed any woman would ever have to put up with——”
He said quietly:
“Have you done?”
She gasped at him, tried to stop, but because she had begun to enjoy her fury, she forced the note and screamed at him: