VE me money--gave it to your mistress, if she
was complaisant, and then you----"

"Carrie!"

"(Don't interrupt me!)--then you felt you'd discharged all obligation.
Well, hereafter I'll refuse your money, as a gift. Either I'm your
partner, in charge of the household department of our business, with a
regular budget for it, or else I'm nothing. If I'm to be a mistress,
I shall choose my lovers. Oh, I hate it--I hate it--this smirking and
hoping for money--and then not even spending it on jewels as a mistress
has a right to, but spending it on double-boilers and socks for you!
Yes indeed! You're generous! You give me a dollar, right out--the only
proviso is that I must spend it on a tie for you! And you give it when
and as you wish. How can I be anything but uneconomical?"

"Oh well, of course, looking at it that way----"

"I can't shop around, can't buy in large quantities, have to stick to
stores where I have a charge account, good deal of the time, can't plan
because I don't know how much money I can depend on. That's what I pay
for your charming sentimentalities about giving so generously. You make
me----"

"Wait! Wait! You know you're exaggerating. You never thought about that
mistress stuff till just this minute! Matter of fact, you never have
'smirked and hoped for money.' But all the same, you may be right. You
ought to run the household as a business. I'll figure out a definite
plan tomorrow, and hereafter you'll be on a regular amount or
percentage, with your own checking account."

"Oh, that IS decent of you!" She turned toward him, trying to be
affectionate. But his eyes were pink and unlovely in the flare of the
match with which he lighted his dead and malodorous cigar. His head
drooped, and a ridge of flesh scattered with pale small bristles bulged
out under his chin.

She sat in abeyance till he croaked:

"No. 'Tisn't especially decent. It's just fair. And God knows I want
to be fair. But I expect others to be fair, too. And you're so high and
mighty about people. Take Sam Clark; best soul that ever lived, honest
and loyal and a damn good fellow----"

("Yes, and a good shot at ducks, don't forget that!")

("Well, and he is a good shot, too!) Sam drops around in the evening to
sit and visit, and by golly just because he takes a dry smoke and rolls
his cigar around in his mouth, and maybe spits a few times, you look
at him as if he was a hog. Oh, you didn't know I was onto you, and I
certainly ho