ing the
floor in a quick, feverish sort of way, with gestures half hysterical, her
voice bursting with emotions of mingled fright and rage.

"No, this time it's divorce!" she declared, at the end of her first
outburst, in which she had told in fragments of her husband's double life.
"I've stood it long enough! I'm through!"

"You mean you don't care for him," Deborah said. She was fighting for time
to think it out. "You want a divorce. Very well, Laura dear--but how do you
think you are going to get it? The laws are rather strict in this state.
They allow but one cause. Have you any proofs?"

"No, I haven't--but I don't need any proofs! He wants it as badly as I do!
Wait--I'll give you his very words!" Laura's face grew white with fury.
"'It's entirely up to you, Sweetie'--the beast!--'You can have any kind of
divorce you like. You can let me bring suit on the quiet or you can try to
fight me in court, climb up into the witness chair in front of the
reporters and tell them all about yourself!'"

"_Your husband is to bring suit against you_?" Deborah's voice was loud and
harsh. "For God's sake, Laura, what do you mean?"

"Mean? I mean that _he has proofs_! He has used a detective, the mean
little cur, and he's treating me like the dirt under his feet! Just as
though it were one thing for a man, and another--quite--for a woman! He
even had the nerve to be mad, to get on a high horse, call me names! Turn
me!--turn me out on the street!" Deborah winced as though from a blow. "Oh,
it was funny, funny!" Laura was almost sobbing now.

"Stop, this minute!" Deborah said. "You say that you've been doing--what he
has?" she demanded.

"Why shouldn't I? What do you know about it? Are you going to turn against
me, too?"

"I am--pretty nearly--"

"Oh, good God!" Laura tossed up her hands and went on with her walking.

"Quiet! Please try to be clear and explain."

"Explain--to you? How can I? _You_ don't understand--you know nothing about
it--all you know about is schools! You're simply a nun when it comes to
this. I see it now--I didn't before--I thought you a modern woman--with
your mind open to new ideas. But it isn't, it seems, when it comes to a
pinch--it's shut as tight as Edith's is--"

"Yes, tight!"

"Thank you very much! Then for the love of Heaven will you kindly leave me
alone! I'll have a talk with father!"

"You will _not_ have a talk with father--"

"I most certainly will--and he'll understand! He's a ma