"Well, I don't gamble. I haven't been to a faro bank for a year. I stay away just to please you, although I know all the chances, and could break the bank as easy as falling off a log."
"You don't gamble, you say, but you are uneasy till you put all your money at risk on those paper things. I don't see the difference."
"You needn't see the difference; nobody asked you to see the difference. Gamble, indeed! there isn't a man on the street that doesn't keep an eye on the paper things, as you call them."
"You see what I told you. You are cross. You like anything better (a sob) than your poor (another) neglected wife."
The sobs now thickened into a cry, and, with streaming eyes, she picked up the puny child and declared she was going to bed. To this proposal the moody man emphatically assented. But as Mrs. Fletcher passed near her husband, the child reached out its slender arms and caught hold of him by his cravat, screaming, "Papa! papa! I stay, papa!"
"Let go!" roughly exclaimed the amiable father. But she held the tighter, and shouted, "Papa! my papa!"
What sudden freak overcame his anger probably not even Fletcher himself could tell. But, turning towards his wife, who was supporting the child, whose little fingers still held him fast, his face cleared instantly, and, with a sudden movement, he drew the surprised and delighted woman down upon his knee, and loaded her with every form of childish endearment. Her tears and sorrows vanished together, like the dew.
"Little duck," said he, "if I were alone, I shouldn't care for any more money. I know I can always take care of myself. But for your sake I want to be independent,—rich, if you please. I want to be free. I want to meet that wily, smooth, plausible, damned, respectable villain face to face, and with as much money as he."
His eyes danced with a furious light and motion, and the fringy moustache trembled over his thin and sensitive mouth. But in a moment he repented the outbreak; for his wife's face blanched then, and the tears leaped from her eyes.
"Oh, John," she exclaimed, "what is this awful secret? I know that something is killing you. You mutter in sleep; you are sullen at times; and then you break out in this dreadful way."