and flung a gay spot
of yellow on the cloth. He started toward her.

Terry, wild-eyed, pointed a shaking finger at him. She was laughing,
now, uncontrollably. "Your elbow! Your elbow!"

"Elbow?" He looked down at it, bewildered; then up, fright in his face.
"What's the matter with it?"

She mopped her eyes. Sobs shook her. "You f-f-flapped it."

"F-f-f--" The bewilderment in Orville Platt's face gave way to anger.
"Do you mean to tell me that you screeched like that because my--because
I moved my elbow?"

"Yes."

His anger deepened and reddened to fury. He choked. He had started from
his chair with his napkin in his hand. He still clutched it. Now he
crumpled it into a wad and hurled it to the centre of the table, where
it struck a sugar bowl, dropped back, and uncrumpled slowly,
reprovingly. "You--you--" Then bewilderment closed down again like a fog
over his countenance. "But why? I can't see--"

"Because it--because I can't stand it any longer. Flapping. This is what
you do. Like this."

And she did it. Did it with insulting fidelity, being a clever mimic.

"Well, all I can say is you're crazy, yelling like that, for nothing."

"It isn't nothing."

"Isn't, huh? If that isn't nothing, what is?" They were growing
incoherent. "What d'you mean, screeching like a maniac? Like a wild
woman? The neighbours'll think I've killed you. What d'you mean,
anyway!"

"I mean I'm tired of watching it, that's what. Sick and tired."

"Y'are, huh? Well, young lady, just let me tell _you_ something--"

He told her. There followed one of those incredible quarrels, as
sickening as they are human, which can take place only between two
people who love each other; who love each other so well that each knows
with cruel certainty the surest way to wound the other; and who stab,
and tear, and claw at these vulnerable spots in exact proportion to
their love.

Ugly words. Bitter words. Words that neither knew they knew flew between
them like sparks between steel striking steel.

From him--"Trouble with you is you haven't got enough to do. That's the
trouble with half you women. Just lay around the house, rotting. I'm a
fool, slaving on the road to keep a good-for-nothing--"

"I suppose you call sitting around hotel lobbies slaving! I suppose the
house runs itself! How about my evenings? Sitting here alone, night
after night, when you're on the road."

Finally, "Well, if you don't like it," he snarled, and lifted his chair
b