n't want to take you there."

"I don't want to go there," said Oliver. "But my hotel--"

"_Quit arguin'"_! said the policeman in a bark like a teased bulldog.

Oliver turned and walked two steps away. Then he turned again. After all
why not? The important part of his life was over anyhow--and before the
rest of it finished he might be able to tell one large policeman just
what he thought of him.

"Why, you big blue boob," he began abruptly with a sense of pleasant
refreshment better than drink, "You great heaving purple ice wagon--"
and then he was stopped abruptly for the policeman was taking the
necessary breath away.

XVII

About which time Nancy had finished crying--raging at herself all the
time, she hated to cry so--and was sitting up straight on the couch
looking at the door which Oliver had shut as if by looking it very hard
indeed she could make it turn into Oliver.

It _couldn't_ end this way. If it did it just meant that all the
last year wasn't real--hadn't any more part in reality than charity
theatricals. And they'd both of them been so sure that it was the chief
reality that they had ever known.

He wasn't _reasonable_. She hadn't wanted the darned old job, she'd
wanted to marry him, but as long as they hadn't seemed to get very far
in the last eight months when he'd been trying to work it--why couldn't
_she_ try----

Then 'Oh Nancy, be honest!' to herself. No, that wasn't true.
She'd wanted the job, wanted to get it, hadn't thought about Oliver
particularly when she'd tried for it except to be a little impatient
with him for not using more judgment when he picked out his job. Did
that mean that she didn't love him? Oh Lord, it was all so mixed up.

Starting out so clearly at first and everything being so perfect--and
then the last four months and both getting tireder and tireder and all
the useless little misunderstandings that made you wonder how could you
if you really cared. And now this.

For an instant of mere relief from strain Nancy saw herself in Paris,
studying as she had always wanted to study, doing some real work, all
Paris hers to play with like a big gray stone toy, never having to worry
about loving, about being loved, about people you loved. Being free.
Like taking off your hot, hot clothes and lying in water when you were
too hot and tired even to think of sleeping. Oliver too--she'd leave him
free--he'd really work better without her--without having her to take
care