Then he took up the account of his expenditures. He sat there, eagerly handling the papers, now frowning heavily when he could not at once balance some small sum, now stiffening his double chin in satisfied self-righteousness as he explained some new way of saving that had occurred to him…. Again and again, to the point of weariness, he reiterated solemnly: "You see, I'm an honest man."
And always when he said that, a weary irony prompted her to reply:
"Ah, what that honesty has cost me." … But she held her peace.
And again she wanted to cry out: "Let be! A woman like myself doesn't care for these two-penny decencies." But she saw how deep an inner necessity it was to him to stand before her in this conventional spotlessness. And so she didn't rob him of his childlike joy.
At last he made an end and spread out the little blue books before her—there was one for each year. "Here," he said proudly, "you can go over it yourself. It's exact."
"It had better be!" she cried with a jesting threat and put the little books under a flower-pot.
A prankish mood came upon her now which she couldn't resist.
"Now that this important business is at an end," she said, "there is still another matter about which I must have some certainty."
"What is that?" he said, listening intensely.
"Have you been faithful to me in all this time?"
He became greatly confused. The scars on his left cheek glowed like thick, red cords.