It was the awful anger of a patient man thoroughly aroused that fronted her.
“I have a right to speak my own mind, and I pretty gen’rally do it,” she muttered, but she did not venture to say any more.
He slowly sank back into his armchair, still glaring at her.
“Oh, the devilish weapon that a woman feels privileged to use,” he cried. After a time he went on sternly:
“Esther, I knew you at school, and I’ve watched you more or less since. You were kind of a cute little girl, with your way of spitting out just what you thought about folks and things. But we’d laugh at kittens when we’d cuff an old cat’s ears for doing the same thing. You’ve nagged and browbeaten your husband all your life together, and you know it!”
“Gimme them dockyments,” she rasped, popping up with a snap like a carpenter’s rule. The lawyer put his broad hand on them.
“’Caje Dunham was the kind of man that you could have driven with a cotton thread of love and teamed him anywhere. But you’ve used goad sticks, and hot pitch and a twist bit, and it isn’t any wonder you’ve made him balky.”
“So you’re stickin’ up for that missable critter right before my face and eyes,” she cried. “I might ’a’ knowed better than to come here and expect a dried-up old bach to admit anything about the rights of a woman. You give me them papers, Squire Phin Look! I know where I can buy law, even if it isn’t for sale in this shop.”
He calmly held the papers away from her clutching fingers.
“How much have you and ’Caje put away between you?” he inquired.