"I dunno. I dunno. I—don't want nothing. That's all, nothing but to be left alone."
He sucked his lips inward, biting at them.
"Don't—don't think I ain't noticed, Bloss, that you—you ain't been the same—that you been different—for weeks. Sometimes I think maybe you're going cold on—on this long engagement stuff. That's why this thing is breaking just right for us, honey. I felt you slippin' a little. I'm ready now, Peaches, we can't go taxi-cabbing down for that license none too soon to suit me."
She shook her head, beating softly with one small fist into her other palm.
"No, Hal," she said, her mouth tightening and drawing down.
"Why—why, Bloss!"
Suddenly she faced him, her hands both fists now, and coming down with a force that shivered the china.
"You—you ain't a man, you ain't. You ain't a man, you—you're a slacker! You're a slacker, that's what you are, and Gawd, how I—how I hate a slacker!"
"Bloss—why, girl—you—you're cra—-"
"Oh, I've known it. Deep down inside of me I've known it since the day we found ourselves in the mess of this war. I knew it, and all those months kept kidding myself that maybe—you—wasn't."