He turned slowly, enjoying her amazement. He finished packing a shirt. She said nothing, standing at the door. Teetering on his toes and watching the effect of it all on her, he lighted a large cigar.
"Some class, eh?" he said.
"Well-"
"Nifty suit, eh? And how are those for swell ties?"
"Very nice.... From whom did you borrow the money?"
"Now that cer'nly is a nice, sweet way to congratulate friend hubby. Oh, sure! Man lands a job, works his head off getting it, gets an advance for some new clothes he's simply got to have, and of course everybody else congratulates him-everybody but his own wife. She sniffs at him-not a word about the new job, of course. First crack outa the box, she gets busy suspecting him, and says, 'Who you been borrowing of now?' And this after always acting as though she was an abused little innocent that nobody appreciated-"
He was in mid-current, swimming strong, and waving his cigar above the foaming waters, but she pulled him out of it with, "I am sorry. I ought to have known. I'm a beast. I am glad, awfully glad you've got a new job. What is it?"
"New company handling a new kind of motor for row-boats-converts 'em to motor-boats in a jiffy-outboard motors they call 'em. Got a swell territory and plenty bonus on new business."
"Oh, isn't that fine! It's such a fine surprise-and it's cute of you to keep it to surprise me with all this while-"
"Well, 's a matter of fact, I just got on to it to-day. Ran into Burke McCullough on Sixth Avenue, and he gave me the tip."
"Oh!" A forlorn little "Oh!" it was. She had pictured him proudly planning to surprise her. And she longed to have the best possible impression of him, because of a certain plan which was hotly being hammered out in her brain. She went on, as brightly as possible:
"And they gave you an advance? That's fine."
"Well, no, they didn't, exactly, but Burke introduced me to his clothier, and I got a swell line of credit."
"Oh!"
"Now for the love of Pete, don't go oh-ing and ah-ing like that. You've handed me the pickled visage since I got the rowdy-dow on my last job-good Lord! you acted like you thought I liked to sponge on you. Now let me tell you I've kept account of every red cent you've spent on me, and I expect to pay it back."
She tried to resist her impulse, but she couldn't keep from saying, as nastily as possible: "How nice. When?"
"Oh, I'll pay it back, all right, trust you for that! You won't fail to keep wising me up on the fact that you think I'm a drunken bum. You'll sit around all day in a hotel and take it easy and have plenty time to figger out all the things you can roast me for, and then spring them on me the minute I get back from a trip all tired out. Like you always used to."
"Oh, I did not!" she wailed.
"Sure you did."
"And what do you mean by my sitting around, from now on-"
"Well, what the hell else are you going to do? You can't play the piano or maybe run an aeroplane, can you?"
"Why, I'm going to stay on my job, of course, Ed."
"You are not going-to-of-course-stay-on-your-job-Ed, any such a thing. Lemme tell you that right here and now, my lady. I've stood just about all I'm going to stand of your top-lofty independence and business airs-as though you weren't a wife at all, but just as 'be-damned-to-you' independent as though you were as much of a business man as I am! No, sir, you'll do what I say from now on. I've been tied to your apron strings long enough, and now I'm the boss-see? Me!" He tapped his florid bosom. "You used to be plenty glad to go to poker parties and leg-shows with me, when I wanted to, but since you've taken to earning your living again you've become so ip-de-dee and independent that when I even suggest rushing a growler of beer you scowl at me, and as good as say you're too damn almighty good for Eddie Schwirtz's low-brow amusements. And you've taken to staying out all hours-course it didn't matter whether I stayed here without a piece of change, or supper, or anything else, or any amusements, while you were out whoop-de-doodling around-You said it was with women!"
She closed her eyes tight; then, wearily: "You mean, I suppose, that you think I was out with men."
"Well, I ain't insinuating anything about what you been doing. You been your own boss, and of course I had to take anything off anybody as long as I was broke. But lemme tell you, from now on, no pasty-faced female is going to rub it in any more. You're going to try some of your own medicine. You're going to give up your rotten stenographer's job, and you're going to stay home where I put you, and when I invite you to come on a spree you're going to be glad-"
Her face tightened with rage. She leaped at him, shook him by the shoulder, and her voice came in a shriek:
"Now that's enough. I'm through. You did mean to insinuate I was out with men. I wasn't-but that was just accident. I'd have been glad to, if there'd been one I could have loved even a little. I'd have gone anywhere with him-done anything! And now we're through. I stood you as long as it was my job to do it. God! what jobs we women have in this chivalrous world that honors women so much!-but now that you can take care of yourself, I'll do the same."
"What d' yuh mean?"
"I mean this."
She darted at the bed, yanked from beneath it her suit-case, and into it began to throw her toilet articles.
Mr. Schwirtz sat upon the bed and laughed enormously.
"You women cer'nly are a sketch!" he caroled. "Going back to mamma, are you? Sure! That's what the first Mrs. Schwirtz was always doing. Let's see. Once she got as far as the depot before she came back and admitted that she was a chump. I doubt if you get that far. You'll stop on the step. You're too tightwad to hire a taxi, even to try to scare me and make it unpleasant for me."
Una stopped packing, stood listening. Now, her voice unmelodramatic again, she replied:
"You're right about several things. I probably was thoughtless about leaving you alone evenings-though it is not true that I ever left you without provision for supper. And of course you've often left me alone back there in the hotel while you were off with other women-"
"Now who's insinuating?" He performed another characteristic peroration. She did not listen, but stood with warning hand up, a small but plucky-looking traffic policeman, till he ceased, then went on:
"But I can't really blame you. Even in this day when people like my friend Mamie Magen think that feminism has won everything, I suppose there must still be a majority of men like you-men who've never even heard of feminism, who think that their women are breed cattle. I judge that from the conversations I overhear in restaurants and street-cars, and these pretty vaudeville jokes about marriage that you love so, and from movie pictures of wives beating husbands, and from the fact that women even yet haven't the vote. I suppose that you don't really know many men besides the mucky cattle-drover sort, and I can't blame you for thinking like them-"
"Say, what is all this cattle business about? I don't seem to recall we were discussing stockyards. Are you trying to change the conversation, so you won't even have to pack your grip before you call your own bluff about leaving me? Don't get it at all, at all!"
"You will get it, my friend!... As I say, I can see-now it's too late-how mean I must have been to you often. I've probably hurt your feelings lots of times-"
"You have, all right."
"-but I still don't see how I could have avoided it. I don't blame myself, either. We two simply never could get together-you're two-thirds the old-fashioned brute, and I'm at least one-third the new, independent woman. We wouldn't understand each other, not if we talked a thousand years. Heavens alive! just see all these silly discussions of suffrage that men like you carry on, when the whole thing is really so simple: simply that women are intelligent human beings, and have the right-"