dragged himself into the house.
Dorothea, already in her night-gown, was sitting at the table in the
living room, sewing a ribbon on the dress she had just been wearing: it
had somehow got loose.

They spoke to each other. Daniel stood behind her, near the stove, and
looked over at the back of her bared neck as if held by a spell. One
cold shiver after another was running through his body.

"Who gave you those ostrich feathers?" he asked, suddenly and rather
brusquely. The question slipped from his lips before he himself was
aware of it. He would have liked to say something else.

Dorothea raised her head with a jerk. "I thought I told you," she
replied, and he noticed that she coloured up.

"I cannot believe that a perfect stranger, and a woman at that, is
making you such costly presents," said Daniel slowly.

Dorothea got up, and looked at him rather undecidedly. "Very well, if
you simply must know, I bought them myself," she said with unusual
defiance. "But you don't need to try to browbeat me like that; I'll get
the money that I paid for them. And you needn't think for a minute that
I am going to let you draw up a family budget, and expect to make me
live by it."

"You didn't buy those feathers," said Daniel, cutting her off in the
middle of her harangue.

"I didn't buy them, and they were not given to me! How did I get them
then? Stole them perhaps?" Dorothea was scornful; but cowardice made it
impossible for her to look Daniel in the face.

"I have never in my life talked to any one in this way, nor has any one
ever spoken to me like that," thought Daniel to himself. He turned
deathly pale, went up to her, and placed his hand like an iron vise
about her arm. "I shall permit you to waste my money; I shall not object
if you fritter your time away in the company of good-for-nothing people;
if you regard my health and peace of mind as of no consequence whatever,
I shall say nothing; if you let your poor little child suffer and pine
away, I shall keep quiet. I shall submit to all of this. And why
shouldn't I? Why should I want to have my meals served at regular hours?
Why should I insist that my morning coffee be warm and my rolls fresh
from the baker? Why should I be so exacting as to ask that my clothes be
mended, my windows washed, my room swept, and my table in order? I was
not born with a silver spoon in my mouth; I have never known what it was
to be comfortable."

"Oh, listen, Daniel, it's too bad abou