"Well, if you wish to be rid of me, I suppose I can relieve you of my presence."
"Where will you go? How will you live?"
"Oh, I suppose 'the wind will be tempered to the shorn lamb,'" he quoted, with mocking irreverence.
Helen sprang to her feet, and faced him with flaming eyes. She felt disgusted with and outraged by his utter indifference to her long-suffering patience under many trials, and by his deplorable lack of manliness.
"John Hungerford, where is your manhood?" she demanded, with cold scorn. "Where your respect for your wife, or your love for your child? Do you not even possess self-respect?"
"I warn you not to push me too far," he retorted hotly, adding: "Perhaps you really want me to get out—do you?" and he leaned toward her, with a menacing look and air.
"No, for your own sake, I do not wish you to do that; but I do want you to show yourself a man, and some recognition of your duty as a husband and father," Helen spiritedly replied. Then she dauntlessly continued: "But I tell you again we cannot live this way any longer."
"'Duty!' 'Duty!' That is always a woman's fling at a man, even if he is down on his luck. I'm not at all fond of this nagging, and I believe, on the whole, we'd be better off apart," he angrily shot back at her.
For a full minute Helen silently searched his face. It was flushed, sullen, dogged.
Was he really weary of the ties that bound him? Was he tired of her and of Dorothy? Was he seeking an excuse to get out, hoping to rid himself thereby of his moral responsibility, and be free to indulge his admiration for the fascinating soubrette? She was forced to believe that he was—everything seemed to point to that end, and it was evident that he had no intention of yielding to her terms; he would assume no responsibilities that were irksome to him; no burdens to cumber him; and suddenly all her outraged womanhood, wifehood, motherhood were aroused to arms, overleaping the last point of endurance.