“Oh, dear, I’m not. Oh, please!”
“Look here. I’m going to take you to a doctor’s. Right now. We’ll get the truth.”
“Oh, no, no, no! Please, no! I can’t.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Oh, please!”
“Uh-huh! And that’s all you’ve got to say for yourself! Come here! Look up at me!”
They must have hurt, his meaty fingers digging into her shoulder, but then, he felt righteous, he felt like the Old Testament prophets whom his sect admired. And he had found something about which he really could quarrel with her.
She did not look at him, for all his pinching. She merely wept, hopelessly.
“Then you were lying?”
“Oh, I was! Oh, dearest, how can you hurt me like you do?” He released his grip, and looked polite. “Oh, I don’t mean hurting my shoulder. That doesn’t matter. I mean hurting me! So cold to me! And I thought maybe if we were married—— I’d do everything to make you happy. I’d go wherever you did. I wouldn’t mind if we had the tiniest little small house—”