“Oh, I’m sorry I said that, Marcia!
I didn’t mean it; indeed I—”
She disdained to heed him, as she swept out of the
room, and up the stairs; and his anger flamed out
again.
“I give you fair warning,” he called after
her, “not to try that trick of locking the door,
or I will smash it in.”
Her answer was to turn the key in the door with a
click which he could not fail to hear.
The peace in which they had been living of late was
very comfortable to Bartley; he liked it; he hated
to have it broken; he was willing to do what he could
to restore it at once. If he had no better motive
than this, he still had this motive; and he choked
down his wrath, and followed Marcia softly upstairs.
He intended to reason with her, and he began, “I
say, Marsh,” as he turned the door-knob.
But you cannot reason through a keyhole, and before
he knew he found himself saying, “Will you open
this?” in a tone whose quiet was deadly.
She did not answer; he heard her stop in her movements
about the room, and wait, as if she expected him to
ask again. He hesitated a moment whether to keep
his threat of breaking the door in; but he turned
away and went down stairs, and so into the street.
Once outside, he experienced the sense of release that
comes to a man from the violation of his better impulses;
but he did not know what to do or where to go.
He walked rapidly away; but Marcia’s eyes and
voice seemed to follow him, and plead with him for
his forbearance. But he answered his conscience,
as if it had been some such presence, that he had forborne
too much already, and that now he should not humble
himself; that he was right and should stand upon his
right. There was not much comfort in it, and he
had to brace himself again and again with vindictive
resolution.
Bartley walked about the streets for a long time,
without purpose or direction, brooding fiercely on
his wrongs, and reminding himself how Marcia had determined
to have him, and had indeed flung herself upon his
mercy, with all sorts of good promises; and had then
at once taken the whip-hand, and goaded and tormented
him ever since. All the kindness of their common
life counted for nothing in this furious reverie, or
rather it was never once thought of; he cursed himself
for a fool that he had ever asked her to marry him,
and for doubly a fool that he had married her when
she had as good as asked him. He was glad, now,
that he had taunted her with that; he only regretted
that he had told her he was sorry. He was presently
aware of being so tired that he could scarcely pull
one leg after another; and yet he felt hopelessly
wide awake. It was in simple despair of anything
else to do that he climbed the stairs to Ricker’s
lofty perch in the Chronicle-Abstract office.
Ricker turned about as he entered, and stared up at
him from beneath the green pasteboard visor with which
he was shielding his eyes from the gas; his hair,
which was of the harshness and color of hay, was stiffly
poked up and strewn about on his skull, as if it were
some foreign product.
