“Money! Good Heavens—I owe everybody.”
“You owe him too, don't you? He'll never walk again.”
“I can't give them ten dollars. I don't see that I'm under any obligation, anyhow. I paid his board for two months in the hospital.”
When she did not acknowledge this generosity,—amounting to forty-eight dollars,—his irritation grew. Her silence was an accusation. Her manner galled him, into the bargain. She was too calm in his presence, too cold. Where she had once palpitated visibly under his warm gaze, she was now self-possessed and quiet. Where it had pleased his pride to think that he had given her up, he found that the shoe was on the other foot.
At the entrance to a side street she stopped.
“I turn off here.”
“May I come and see you sometime?”
“No, please.”
“That's flat, is it?”
“It is, Palmer.”