“And I suppose you think I don’t intend to take care of you! Sure! Prob’ly I stay out late nights and play cards and gamble and drink and run around after women! Of course! I’m not a minister of the gospel—I’m a saloon-keeper!”
“Oh, dear, dear, dear, oh, my dearest, I didn’t mean to hurt you! I just meant—— You’re so strong and big, and I’m—oh, of course I’m not a tiny little thing, but I haven’t got your strength.”
He enjoyed feeling injured, but he was warning himself, “Shut up, you chump! You’ll never educate her to make love if you go bawling her out.”
He magnanimously comforted her: “Oh, I know. Of course, you poor dear. Fool thing anyway, your mother having this big wedding, and all the eats and the relatives coming in and everything.”
And with all this, she still seemed distressed.
But he patted her hand, and talked about the cottage they were going to furnish in Banjo Crossing; and as he thought of the approaching Zenith, of their room at the O’Hearn House (there was no necessity for a whole suite, as formerly, when he had had to impress his Prosperity pupils), he became more ardent, whispered to her that she was beautiful, stroked her arm till she trembled.
V
The bell-boy had scarcely closed the door of their room, with its double bed, when he had seized her, torn off her overcoat, with its snow-wet collar, and hurled it on the floor. He kissed her throat. When he had loosened his clasp, she retreated, the back of her hand fearfully at her lips, her voice terrified as she begged, “Oh, don’t! Not now! I’m afraid!”
“That’s damned nonsense!” he raged, stalking her as she backed away.
“Oh, no, please!”