"How much?"
"About fifty dollars."
She gasped, and her sullen composure fled. "Fifty dollars! For that—that——" Breath failed her.
Tom looked around. Her black eyes were blazing. Her hands were clenched. Her full breast was rising and falling rapidly.
"Tom Keating, this is about the limit!" she broke out. "Hain't your foolishness learnt you anything yet? It's cost you seven dollars a week already. And here you are, throwing fifty dollars away all in one lump! Fifty dollars!" Her breath failed her again. "That's like you! You'll throw money away, and let me go without a decent rag to my back!"
Tom arose. "Maggie," he said, in a voice that was cold and hard, "I don't expect any sympathy from you. I don't expect you to understand what I'm about. I don't think you want to understand. But I do expect you to keep still, if you've got nothing better to say than you've just said!"
Maggie had lost herself. "Is that a threat?" she cried furiously. "Do you mean to threaten me? Why, you brute! D'you think you can make me keep still? You throw away money that's as much mine as yours!—you make me suffer for it!—and yet you expect me never to say a word, do you?"
Tom glared at her. His hands tingled to lay hold of her and shake her. But, as he glared, he thought of the woman he had so recently left, and a sense of shame for his desire crept upon him. And, too, he began vaguely to feel, what it was inevitable he should some time feel, the contrast between his wife ... and this other.
His silence added to her frenzy. "You threaten me? What do I care for your threats! You can't do anything worse than you already have done,—and are doing. You're ruining us! Well, what are you standing there for? Why——"