Albert shook his head. “I was sure of so many things then,” he said. “I must have been an insufferable kid.”
She stamped her foot. “It was less than three years ago that you said it,” she declared. “You are not so frightfully ancient now. . . . Well, go on, go on. How did it end, the talk with Father, I mean?”
“I told him,” he continued, “that I meant to write and to earn my living by writing. I meant to try magazine work—stories, you know—and, soon, a novel. He asked if earning enough to support a wife on would not be a long job at that time. I said I was afraid it might, but that that seemed to me my particular game, nevertheless.”
She interrupted again. “Did it occur to you to question whether or not that determination of yours was quite fair to me?” she asked.
“Why—why, yes, it did. And I don't know that it IS exactly fair to you. I—”
“Never mind. Go on. Tell me the rest. How did it end?”
“Well, it ended in a sort of flare-up. Mr. Fosdick was just a little bit sarcastic, and I expressed my feelings rather freely—too freely, I'm afraid.”
“Never mind. I want to know what you said.”
“To be absolutely truthful, then, this is what I said: I said that I appreciated his kindness and was grateful for the offer. But my mind was made up. I would not live upon his charity and draw a large salary for doing nothing except be a little, damned tame house-poet led around in leash and exhibited at his wife's club meetings. . . . That was about all, I think. We shook hands at the end. He didn't seem to like me any the less for . . . Why, Madeline, have I offended you? My language was pretty strong, I know, but—”
She had bowed her head upon her arms amid the sofa cushions and was crying. He sprang to his feet and bent over her.