omething to do with it; maybe
Daisy herself had a little pride--but what's the use of speculating?
It all goes back to the same beginning--opinions differ.

Tongues wagged; Flannagan listened--that's the gist of it. But, once
for all, let it be said and understood that Daisy MacQueen was as
straight as they make them. She hadn't been brought up the way Mrs.
MacAloon and her coterie had, and she liked to laugh, liked to play,
liked to live, and not exist in a humdrum way ever over washtubs and a
cook stove--though, all credit to her who hadn't been used to them, she
never shirked one nor the other. The women's ideas about circuses and
circus performers were, putting it mildly, puritanical; but the men
liked Daisy MacQueen--and took no pains to hide it. They clustered
around her, and, before long, she ruled them all imperially with a nod
of her pretty head; and, as a result, the women's ideas from
puritanical became more so--which is human nature, Big Cloud or
anywhere else.

At first, Flannagan was proud of the little wife he had brought to Big
Cloud--proud of her for the very attitude adopted toward her by his
mates; but, as the months went by, gradually the wagging tongues got in
their work, gradually Flannagan began to listen, and the jealousy that
was his by nature above the jealousy of most men commenced to smolder
into flame. Just a rankling jealousy, directed against no one in
particular--just jealousy. Things up at the little house off Main
Street where the Flannagans lived weren't as harmonious as they had
been.

In the beginning, Daisy, not treating the matter seriously, answered
Flannagan with a laugh; finally, she answered him not at all. And that
stage, unfortunately far from unique in other homes than Flannagan's
the world over, was reached where only some one act, word or deed was
needed to bring matters to a head.

Perhaps, after all, there was poetic justice in Flannagan's cursing of
the circus, for it was the circus that supplied that one thing needed.
Not that the circus came back to town--it didn't--but a certain round,
little, ferret-eyed, short, pompadour-haired, waxed-mustached, perfumed
Signor Ferraringi, the ringmaster, did.

Ferraringi was a scoundrel--what he got he deserved, there was never
any doubt about that; but that night Flannagan, when he walked into the
house, saw only Ferraringi on his knees before Daisy, heard only
impassioned, flowery words, and, in the blind fury that