Sheila blenched at this. “He is my husband!” she stormed. “And you’d better not let him hear you talk so to me.”
Reben’s knees softened under him. “Sheila! you don’t mean that you’ve gone and got yourself married!”
“What else should I mean? How dare you think anything else?”
“Oh, you fool! you fool! you little damned fool!”
“Thanks!”
“You little sneaking traitor. Didn’t you promise me, on your word of honor—”
“I promised to carry out my contract. And here I am.”
“I ought to break that contract myself.”
“You couldn’t please me better.”
He stood over her and glowered while his fingers twitched. She stared back at him pugnaciously. Then he mourned over her. She was both his lost love and his lost ward. His regret broke out in a groan: