“Why, Robert!” they cried, having now recovered some fluency of speech, “we’re awfully glad to know about this.” And the women with some pretence at cordiality would turn to Martha, saying, “You must come to see us when you’ve settled down,” and the men would wring Robert by the hand, slap him on the back, and dig him in the ribs. It was obvious that Robert derived a fierce and perverse pleasure from his stupid lie, but the girl was in a state of smouldering rage which blazed out at him the moment his friends had gone away. “You damn fool,” she snapped, “what do you mean by telling a lie like that?”
“It’s not a lie,” he said, “it’s the truth. You’re my wife in everything but name!”
“You’re a liar! Take that back! Don’t you believe him.” she said to Eugene, “there’s not a word of truth in what he says…. You damned fool!” she blazed out at him. “What do you mean by telling your friends a story like that? Don’t you know they’re going to find out that you lied to them? And then,” she added bitterly, “what are they going to say about me? You never thought of that, did you? Oh, no! You don’t care if you ruin me or not! All you think of is yourself!”
“I don’t care,” he said with a sullen fierceness, “you’re my wife and that’s what I’m going to tell them all!”
“You’re not!”
“I am! I’ll show you if I don’t!”
“I’m not your wife, and you needn’t be so sure I ever will be! I got married once to a sick man, and I’ll think it over a good long time, I assure you, before I get married again to a crazy man! Now, you’d better not be too sure of yourself, Mr. Weaver! You’re not married to me yet by a long shot!”
A bitter quarrel broke out between them: they snarled, snapped, sneered, and wrangled—their voices rose until people at other tables began to look at them and listen curiously, but they paid no attention whatever to anyone but themselves. Robert ended the argument suddenly by pushing his chair back from the table, sighing heavily, and saying feverishly and impatiently:
“All right, all right, all right! You’re right! I’m wrong! Only, for God’s sake, shut up and let me have a little peace!” Then they got into a taxi and went back to the hotel. They had a bottle of whisky and they all went up to Robert’s room, telephoned for ice and ginger ale, and began to drink. It was a little before midnight.
About two o’clock that night, as they sat there, a light, odd step, approaching briskly,
