"I'll what?" I demanded, blocking the door to the library.
"You'll be forty, Jack, and it's a mighty unattractive man who gets past forty without being sought and won by some woman. You'll be buying—"
"I will be thirty-nine," I said with dignity, "and as far as being sought and won goes, I am so overwhelmed by Fred's misery that I don't intend to marry at all. If I do—if I do—it will be to some girl who turns and runs the other way every time she sees me."
"The oldest trick in the box," Edith scoffed. "What's that thing Fred's always quoting: 'A woman is like a shadow; follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows.'"
"Upon my word!" I said indignantly. "And you are a woman!"
"I'm different," she retorted. "I'm only a wife and mother."
In the library Fred got up from his desk and gathered up his papers. "I can't think with you two whispering there," he said, "I'm going to the den."
As he slammed the door into his workroom Edith picked up her skirts and scuttled after him.
"How dare you run away like that?" she called. "You promised me—" The door closed behind her.
I went over and spoke through the panels.