"And to me, too, I dare say. A nice way for a wife to go on to a husband who has cherished and protected her."
"Oh, stop it, you ninny," Julie said. "Stop carrying on as though I'd murdered you."
"I'd have preferred to be murdered," Marc said, shuddering with pain.
"Stop crouching like that," Julie said. "And stop holding yourself in that suggestive way. You look like a child with uncertain habits. Straighten up."
Marc considered the matter of straightening up; never had he felt so strongly the need to rise to his full height. He relinquished his grip on himself and tried to unbend. Instantly he fell back into the crouching position with a cry of pain.
"I can't!" he cried. "I can't straighten up!"
Julie's expression swiftly undertook a series of transformations ranging from suspicion to chagrin to abject contrition.
"Of course you can," she said anxiously. "Try."
"I can't, I tell you!" Marc gritted. "And it serves you right. As a matter of fact I hope I stay this way, and you have to spend the rest of your days explaining to everyone how it happened. You've dislocated my sacroiliac, that's what you've done, you brutish female!"
"Oh, no!" Julie gasped. "Oh, Marc!" She ran toward him.