The Fighting Chance

Now he was attempting it again, with more sincerity, energy, and determination than he ever before had been forced to display. Even in his most profane violence the rage and panic were only partly real. He was, it is true, genuinely scared, and horribly shaken physically, but he had counted on violence, and he stimulated his own emotions and made them serve him, knowing all the while that in the reaction his ends would be accomplished, as usual. This policy of alternately frightening, dragooning, and supplicating Leila had carried him so far; and though it was true that this was a more serious situation than he had ever yet faced, he was convinced that his wife would pull him out somehow; and how that was to be accomplished he did not very much care, as long as he was pulled out safely.

"What this household requires," he said, "is economy." He spread his legs, denting the Aubusson carpet with his boot-heels, and glanced askance at his wife. "Economy," he repeated, furtively wetting his lips with a heavily coated tongue; "that's the true solution; economical administration in domestic matters. Retrenchment, Leila! retrenchment! Fewer folderols. I've a notion to give up that farm, and stop trying to breed those damfool sheep. They cost a thousand apiece, and do you know what I got for those six I sent to Westbury? Just twelve hundred dollars from Fleetwood--the bargaining shopkeeper! Twelve hundred! Think of that! And along comes Granby and sells a single ram for six thousand plunks!"

Leila's head was lowered. He could not see her expression, but he had always been confident of his ability to talk himself out of trouble, so he rambled on in pretence of camaraderie, currying favour, as he believed, ingratiating himself with the coarse bluntness that served him among some men, even among some women.

"We'll fix it somehow," he said reassuringly; "don't you worry, Leila. I've confidence in you, little girl! You've got me out of sticky messes before, eh? Well, we've weathered a few, haven't we?"

Even the horrible parody on wedded loyalty left her silent, unmoved, dark eyes brooding; and he began to grow a little restless and anxious as his jocularity increased without a movement in either response or aversion from his wife.

"You needn't be scared, if I'm not," he said reproachfully. "The house is worth two hundred and fifty thousand, and there's only fifty on it now. If that fat, Dutch skinflint, Plank, shows his tusks, we can clap on another fifty." And as she made no sound or movement in reply: "As far as Plank goes, haven't I done enough for him to square it? What have we ever got out of him, except a thousand or two now and then when the cards went against me? If I took it, it was practically what he owes me. And if he thinks it's too much--look here, Leila! I've a trick up my sleeve. I can make good any time I wish to. I'm in a position to marry that man to the girl he's mad about--stark, raving mad."