“Hadn’t you better hush a little yourself?” she retorted. “You come home with twelve dollars in your pocket and tell your wife to hush! That’s nice? Why can’t you do what decent men do?”
“What’s that?”
“Why, give their wives something to live for. What do you give me, I’d like to know! Look at the clothes I wear, please!”
“Well, it’s your own fault,” he muttered.
“What did you say! Did you say it’s my fault I wear clothes any women I know wouldn’t be seen in?”
“Yes, I did. If you hadn’t made me get you that platinum ring——”
“What!” she cried, and flourished her hand at him across the table. “Look at it! It’s platinum, yes; but look at the stone in it, about the size of a pinhead, so’s I’m ashamed to wear it when any of my friends see me! A hundred and sixteen dollars is what this magnificent ring cost you, and how long did I have to beg before I got even that little out of you? And it’s the best thing I own and the only thing I ever did get out of you!”
“Oh, Lordy!” he moaned.
“I wish you’d seen Charlie Loomis looking at this ring to-day,” she said, with a desolate laugh. “He happened to notice it, and I saw him keep glancing at it, and I wish you’d seen Charlie Loomis’s expression!”
Collinson’s own expression became noticeable upon her introduction of this name; he stared at her gravely until he completed the mastication of one of the indigestibles she had set before him; then he put down his fork and said: