She entreated.
He heaved an angry forehead at her, puckered an eye, toned a long No that wagged vibration behind it like an undocked tail.
She persisted, whereupon he loosed his thunder—
"You're not to step outside the house this night, ma'am," said he; and to her angry "I will go," he barked, "If you do go, don't come back here. I'll have a dutiful wife or I'll have none—stay in or stay out. I'm tired humouring your whimsies, let you humour mine now——"
Then a flame gathered on her face, it grew hot in her voice, flashed to a point in her eyes—
"I'm going out to-night," said she loudly; "are you coming with me?"
"I'm not," said he.
"Then," she snapped, "I'll go by myself."
"Wherever you go to-night you can stay," he roared. "Don't come back to this house."
"I'm not mad enough to want to," she replied. "I wish I'd never seen your old house. I wish I'd never seen yourself. You are just as dull as your house is, and nearly as flat. It's a stupid, uninteresting, slow house, so it is, and you are a stupid, dissatisfied grump of a man, so you are. I'd sooner live in a cave with a hairy bear, so I would——" and out she ran.