"Oh, don't you?... _Don't_ you!" She felt as if she must choke if she continued to parley with him. "Well, I do!" she flashed; and turning, ran up the fourth flight of steps.
He swung on his heel, muttering; and she heard him slam the door to his flat.
She continued more slowly, panting and struggling to subdue the signs of her emotion. But she was poisoned to the deeps of her being with her reawakened loathing of Man. On the top landing she paused, blinking back her tears, digging her nails into her palms while she fought down a tendency to sob, then drew herself up, took a deep breath, and advancing to the dining-room, turned the knob with stealth, to avoid disturbing her family.
To her surprise and dismay, as the first crack widened between the door and jamb, she saw that the room was lighted.
Her father was seated at the dining-table, a cheap pipe gripped between his teeth. Contrary to his custom, when he sat up late, he was not thumbing his dope. His fat, hairy arms were folded upon the oilcloth, his face turned squarely to the door. Instinctively Joan understood that he had waited up for her, that inexplicably a crisis was about to occur in her relations with her family.
In a chair tilted back against the wall, near the window opening upon the air-shaft, Butch sat, his feet drawn up on the lower rung, purple lisle-thread socks luridly displayed, hands in his trouser-pockets, a cigarette drooping from his cynical mouth, a straw hat with brilliant ribbon tilted forward over his eyes.
Closing the door, Joan put her back to it, eyes questioning her parent. Butch did not move. Thursby sagged his chin lower on his chest.
"Where have you been?" he demanded in deep accents, with the incisive and precise enunciation which she had learned to associate only with his phases of bad temper.
"Where've I been?" she repeated, stammering. "Where.... Why--out walking--"
"Street-walking?" he suggested with an ugly snarl.
She sank, a limp, frightened figure, into a chair near the door.
"I mean I'm going to find out the why and wherefore of the way you're behaving yourself. You're my daughter, and not of age yet, and I have a right to know what you do and where you go. Keep still!" he snapped, as she started to interrupt. "Speak when you're spoken to.... I'm going to have a serious talk with you, young woman.... What's all this I hear about your losing your job and going on the stage?"