“You want to quarrel about everything. You want to leave no possible point of agreement.”
“Things are at a bad pass when husband and wife are so.”
Charles looked at her angrily for a moment, and then down to the floor, and he whistled a few bars of a tune.
“What do you whistle for?” she demanded.
“Come, Bertha, don’t be foolish.”
“You were once a gentleman. It is a blackguard who whistles in reply to a lady’s words,” she said, on a sudden stretching out her hand tremulously, as if in search of some one to grasp.
“Well, don’t mind. Stick to one thing at a time. For God’s sake say what you want, and have done with it.”
“You must acknowledge me before the world for your wife,” she answered with resolute serenity, and raising her face, and shutting her mouth she sniffed defiantly through her distended nostrils.
“Come, come, Bertha, what good on earth could come of that?”
“Little to you, perhaps.”