The storm subsided as suddenly as it rose. With a sharp movement she pushed herself away from him and sat looking at him with eyes in which he would have said, if he could have trusted his senses just then, anger and--almost--hate were blazing.
"Shirley," he pleaded, "don't take it so. Our plans _were_ good. It was only pull that beat us. Dick told me--"
The eyes did not change. "It doesn't matter why, does it? They didn't take them--that's all. What difference does it make if things are good when nobody will buy them? And I had hoped--"
"Dear, don't take it so," he repeated. "We must be brave. This is only a test--the hardest of all. If we're brave and keep hanging on--you remember what we used to say--"
She laughed, not her old beautiful laugh, but a shrill outpouring of her bitter disappointment.
"Oh, we said a lot of silly things. We were fools. I didn't know what it would be like." Anger--yes, and even hate--were unmistakable in that moment. She sat up sharply. "And, David, you've got to do something to change it. I'm tired of it all--sick and tired of scrimping and worrying and wearing made-over dresses and being--just shabby genteel. You've got to do something."
Every word was a knife in his heart. But he could not be angry with her; he was thinking of her disappointment.
"But, dear, I'm doing all I can. How can I--"
"You can get a position somewhere and at least have a steady income that would--"
"Why, Shirley, you don't mean--give up my profession? You _couldn't_ mean that!"
"I mean just that. It would give us a steady income at least."
"But I can't give it up. There's more than money to working. There's being in the work you want to do and are fitted for--"
"Ah!" She turned on him fiercely. "I thought you cared more for your work than for your family. Now I know it. You would keep us poor, just so you can do the things you like to do. And what right have you to think you're fitted for it? Why can't you be sensible and see what everybody else sees--that as an architect you are--"
For a little he stared blindly at her. All other aches were as nothing beside this. . . . Then something within, that had sustained him since he left the office, snapped, gave way. His head and shoulders sagged forward. With a weary gesture he turned and went into the living-room.