"If you feel that you must——" she said, biting her lip with humiliation and passion.
"It's merely——" he rumbled heavily on....
As if she needed to be told what it "merely" was! If he cared to hear it she could tell him what was "merely" the matter with his wife!
"Oh, must you?" she said, quivering under the torture. He was playing nervously with a pen. "Must I what?" he said, not looking up.
"Must you do this?"
He looked up. "Shut the door," he said. "Now——"
She listened to him almost scornfully. Again harping on that informal execution, as if he had been right and not right, and as if it now mattered one straw whether he "told his wife" or not! He was saying something about a doctor; the doctor, Louie gathered, had said she mustn't have another shock; what had Louie—always and for ever Louie—to say to that? Louie clutched at her skirt with both hands.
"Don't you know?" she said, clenching the skirt hard.
"I do not."
"Then ask me again and I'll tell you," she threatened him.