"And there's one thing more—one thing that hurts! You know what she eloped in? She eloped in a hat, a big red hat, three white feathers—one hundred and seventy-five dollars. I gave up a winter suit to get it."
He strode over to the grotesquely large hat-box on the slender table, and struck it with his fist.
"Came this morning. Jim, she waited for that hat! Now, that isn't right! That isn't delicate!"
"No, by Jove, it certainly isn't delicate!"
"Domesticity! Ha!" At the moment, with only the long vision of petty tyranny before him, he could have caught her up in his hands and strangled her. "Domesticity! I've had all I want of domesticity!"
Suddenly the eternal fear awakening in him, he turned and commanded authoritatively:
"Never tell!"
"Never!"
De Gollyer, at forty-two, showed a responsive face, invincibly, gravely sympathetic, patiently awaiting his climax, knowing that nothing is so cumulatively dangerous as confession.
Lightbody took up his glass and again approached it to his lips, frowning at the thought of what he had revealed. All at once a fresh impulse caught him, he put down his glass untasted, blurting out: