"Well, hold on, now!" said Lapham. "What DO you want to talk about? I'm listening."
His wife began, "Why, it's just this, Silas Lapham!" and then she broke off to say, "Well, you may wait, now--starting me wrong, when it's hard enough anyway."
Lapham silently turned his whip over and over in his hand and waited.
"Did you suppose," she asked at last, "that that young Corey had been coming to see Irene?"
"I don't know what I supposed," replied Lapham sullenly. "You always said so." He looked sharply at her under his lowering brows.
"Well, he hasn't," said Mrs. Lapham; and she replied to the frown that blackened on her husband's face. "And I can tell you what, if you take it in that way I shan't speak another word."
"Who's takin' it what way?" retorted Lapham savagely. "What are you drivin' at?"
"I want you should promise that you'll hear me out quietly."
"I'll hear you out if you'll give me a chance. I haven't said a word yet."
"Well, I'm not going to have you flying into forty furies, and looking like a perfect thunder-cloud at the very start. I've had to bear it, and you've got to bear it too."