Judging from the effect which the letter had upon Bud, it must have

been a masterpiece of its kind. He threw the box of chocolates into the

wood-box, crawled out of the window by which he had entered, and went

down town to a hotel. If the house wasn't good enough for Marie, let her

go. He could go just as fast and as far as she could. And if she thought

he was going to hot-foot it over to her mother's and whine around and

beg her to come home, she had another think coming.

He wouldn't go near the darn place again, except to get his clothes.

He'd bust up the joint, by thunder. He'd sell off the furniture and turn

the house over to the agent again, and Marie could whistle for a home.

She had been darn glad to get into that house, he remembered, and away

from that old cat of a mother. Let her stay there now till she was darn

good and sick of it. He'd just keep her guessing for awhile; a week or

so would do her good. Well, he wouldn't sell the furniture--he'd just

move it into another house, and give her a darn good scare. He'd get a

better one, that had a porcelain bathtub instead of a zinc one, and a

better porch, where the kid could be out in the sun. Yes, sir, he'd just

do that little thing, and lay low and see what Marie did about that.

Keep her guessing--that was the play to make.

Unfortunately for his domestic happiness, Bud failed to take into

account two very important factors in the quarrel. The first and most

important one was Marie's mother, who, having been a widow for fifteen

years and therefore having acquired a habit of managing affairs that

even remotely concerned her, assumed that Marie's affairs must be

managed also. The other factor was Marie's craving to be coaxed back to

smiles by the man who drove her to tears. Marie wanted Bud to come and

say he was sorry, and had been a brute and so forth. She wanted to hear

him tell how empty the house had seemed when he returned and found her

gone. She wanted him to be good and scared with that letter. She stayed

awake until after midnight, listening for his anxious footsteps; after

midnight she stayed awake to cry over the inhuman way he was treating

her, and to wish she was dead, and so forth; also because the baby

woke and wanted his bottle, and she was teaching him to sleep all night

without it, and because the baby had a temper just like his father.




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