, and you can't touch her with a ten-foot pole until
she gets over them. She was tired, from the journey, and the fact that
you kept her waiting in the taxicab made her furious. But she'll get
over it. Just be patient, won't you, darling?"

If the average husband only realized how he could play upon his wife's
heart-strings with a few loving words I believe there would be less
marital unhappiness in the world. A few minutes before I had been
fiercely resentful against Dicky's mother. And my anger had reached
to Dicky, for I felt in some vague way that he must be responsible for
his mother's rudeness.

But the knowledge that he, too, was used to her injustice and that he
resented it when directed against me made all the difference in the
world. I reached up my hand and patted his cheek.

"Dear boy, nothing in the world matters, if _you_ aren't cross and
displeased."

XIV

A QUARREL AND A CRISIS

"Can you give me a few minutes' time, Dicky? I have something to tell
you."

Dicky put down the magazine with a bored air. "What is it?" he asked
shortly.

Involuntarily my thoughts flew back to the exquisite courtesy which
had always been Dicky's in the days before we were married. There
had been such a delicate reverence in his every tone and action. I
wondered if marriage changed all men as it had changed my husband.

I went to my room and brought the letter back to Dicky. He read it
through, and I saw his face grow blacker with each word. When he came
to the signature, he turned back to the beginning and read the epistle
through again. Then he crumpled it into a ball and threw it violently
across the room.

"See here, my lady," he exploded. "I think it's about time we came to
a show-down over this business. When I found that first letter from
this lad, I asked you if he were a relative, and you said 'No.' Then
you hand me this touching screed with its 'nearest of kin' twaddle,
and speaking of leaving you a fortune. Now what's the answer?"

"Oh, hardly a fortune, Dicky," I returned quietly. "Jack has only a
few thousand at the outside."

I fear I was purposely provoking, but Dicky's sneering, insulting
manner roused every bit of spirit in me.

"A few thousand you'll never touch as long as you are my wife,"
stormed Dicky. "But you are evading my question."

"Oh, no, I'm not," I said coolly. "That real relationship between Jack
and myself is so slight as to be practically nothing. He is the son of
a d