“Yes, sir, I remember your brutality, and I tell you now I am not going to stand it much longer, either.”
“What will you do?” asked Comston.
“I am not going to live with a man who is such a coward as to strike a defenceless woman. Here you are bragging about it, as if you had performed some wonderful deed. If you ever attempt to strike me again, I will leave you—yes, I will apply for a divorce.”
“O, no, you wouldn’t do that, dear? Who would provide for you?”
“Who provides for me now? I should like to know. If I did not support myself, I should starve. You know that.”
“O, no, you wouldn’t starve, dear. You’ve never starved yet, have you? Do you ’spose Xerxes Comston would let you starve? Nobody can say that of my wife. But, come, Clara, let’s be friends. I haven’t drunk much to-day, and I’m going to quit the business entirely—you hear that?”
“Yes; I have heard it five hundred times. I have lost all confidence in you. I expect nothing but to see you go down to a drunkard’s grave.”
“You want me to die? O, ho! ho! that’s it, is it? Well I am not going to fill any drunkard’s grave. From now on, I’m going to be a better man. We’ll go to hear that preacher preach; it will do us both good—make Christians out of us, I hope. Won’t you go?”
“I do not think,” said Clara with a sneer, “that you will ever be sober enough to go.”
“Yes, I will, though. You see if I don’t.”