"What is intolerable?" he demanded.
"This intrusion," she replied. "I want to be alone for a little; can't you understand that?"
"No, I cannot understand a wife locking her husband out of her room, and what's more, you've no business to do it. I've a legal right to come here whenever I choose."
Then Beth began to realise what the law of man was with regard to her person.
"I never intrude upon you when you shut yourself up," she remonstrated.
"Oh, that is different," he answered arrogantly. "I may have brainwork to do, or something important to think about There is no comparison."
Beth went to her dressing-table, sat down in front of it, folded her hands, and waited doggedly.
He looked at her for a little; then he said, "I don't understand your treatment of me at all, Beth. But there's no understanding women." He spoke as if it were the women's fault, and to their discredit, that he couldn't understand them.
Beth made no answer, and he finally took himself off, slamming the door after him.
"Thank goodness!" Beth exclaimed. "One would think he had bought me."