And then like as not Corydon would burst into tears. “Oh, I think you are a brute!” she would cry. “A perfect brute!”
Or else, perhaps, she would grow angry, and they would rail at each other, exchanging recriminations.
“I think I have burdens enough in my life,” he would exclaim. “I’ve a right to some help from you.”
“You have no sense of proportion!” she would answer. “You are impossible! You would drive any saint to distraction.”
“Perhaps so. But I can’t drive you anywhere, and I’m sick of trying.”
“Oh, if you only weren’t such a talker! You talk—talk—talk!”
And all the while they did this, what grief was in the depths of them! And afterwards, what ghastly wounds in Corydon’s soul, that had to be bound up and tended and healed! The pity of it; the shame of it—that they should be able to descend to such sordidness! That their love, which they had planned as a noble temple, should turn out an ugly hovel!
“Oh Thyrsis!” the girl would cry. “The idea that you should think less of my soul than of an old newspaper!”
“But that is not so, dearest,” he would answer. He would try to explain to her how much the newspaper had meant to him, and just why his annoyance had got the better of him. So they would rehearse the scene over again; and like as not their irritation would sweep over them, and before they realized it they would find themselves disputing once more.
Thyrsis would be making a desperate attempt to bring her to a realization of his difficulties; he would be in the midst of pouring out some eloquence, when she would interrupt him.