Without glancing at Wallace, she put a buttered slice of bread before Teddy.
"I didn't want to distress you with it, Mart," Wallace said weakly.
"Distress me!" his wife echoed with a bitter laugh.
"Of course, some of it is paid back," Wallace added unconvincingly. Martie shot him a quick, distrustful glance. Ah, if she could believe him! "I have his note acknowledging half of it, seventy-five," added Wallace more confidently. "I'll show it to you!"
"I wish you would!" Martie said in cold incredulity. Teddy, deceived by his mother's dispassionate tone, gave Wallace a warm little smile, embellished by bread and milk.
"I guess you've been wondering where I was?" ventured Wallace, rubbing one big bare foot with the other, and hunching his shoulders in his disreputable wrapper. Unshaven, unbrushed, he gave a luxurious yawn.
"No matter!" Martie said, shrugging. She poured her tea, noticed that her fingernails were neglected, and sighed.
"I don't see why you take that attitude, Mart," Wallace said mildly, sitting down. "In the first place, I sent you a letter day before yesterday, which Thompson didn't mail—"
"Really!" said Martie, the seething bitterness within her making hand and voice tremble.
"I have the deuce of a cold!" Wallace suggested tentatively. His wife did not comment, or show in any way that she had heard him. "I know what you think I've been doing," he went on. "But for once, you're wrong. A lot of us have just been down at Joe's in the country. His wife's away, and we just cooked and walked and played cards—and I sat in luck, too!" He opened the wallet he held in his hands, showing a little roll of dirty bills, and Martie was ashamed of the instant softening of her heart. She wanted money so badly! "I was coming home Monday," pursued Wallace, conscious that he was gaining ground, "but this damn cold hit me, and the boys made me stay in bed."