“Find another bed, then. There’s no use grousing about it, and you know it. I mean to live as I please.”
“Aah!” he grumbled, “a person would think it was nothing at all to have Joe Kaplan in your bed.”
“Aah!” she retorted, “your money’s no good to you there!”
She chuckled at her own joke, and the bed shook. Joe, laughing too, tumbled her roughly.
“Your wife must be a funny one,” she said presently.
“She’s all right!” said Joe, carelessly. “I did a damn good day’s work when I copped her. Year by year she gets handsomer. There ain’t a woman in New York can wear diamonds like her. She gives my house the style of a King’s palace.”
“But never to quarrel with you?”
“She’s too proud to quarrel with me. She’d go a hundred miles out of her way to avoid a quarrel. Suits me all right. I don’t want to be bothered around the house. It’s the same about other men. Too proud to look at them. It’s a cinch for me.”
“Well, pride is a cold bedfellow,” said Jewel. “I’m glad I’m not her.”
“God! your breast is so broad and firm!” murmured Joe, pillowing his head there.