He roused himself from the study of it as he heard her demand, “Or do you think I led him on?”
“No. I’m sure you didn’t, Fran. But still—”
Suddenly he had no control over what he was saying; no relation to the man who was saying it:
“Oh, God, I’m so tired! Tired!”
“If you don’t think I’m tired!”
“Look here, Fran. I’m not awfully accustomed to dealing with little lovers in the home. I haven’t had that sort of life. Oh, I know you never had any idea of Lockert’s taking your friendliness for lovemaking. He was a swine. I suppose it’s up to me to go out and shoot him.”
“Oh, don’t be silly!”
“Well, I would feel a good deal like a fool, but if you want me to—” He had been warning himself not to say what he thought. Suddenly he was saying it:
“But as a matter of fact, I don’t entirely blame Lockert. You were flirting with him—you were doing it down at Lord Herndon’s—even on the steamer you acted as if he was running the whole show for you. And he had some excuse for thinking he could grab you off. You have such a nice way of bawling me out right in his presence; you say, ‘Do try to remember that Lady What’s-her-name isn’t used to Americans, and don’t talk about Zenith,’ and so on and so on, until you’ve got me as nervous as an ammeter, till I feel like a Middlewestern bull in a Bond Street china shop, and Lockert listens to it, and naturally he supposes that you think I’m a fool, while he’s ace-high and—”
“Are there any other capital crimes that I’ve committed?”
“Yes. A few. You enjoy highhatting Hurd and decent fellows like that—you’re so blame’ courteous they feel like stable-boys—you play with ’em like a cat with a mouse—and Lockert’s heard you doing it, and he sees you turning toward him for approval, and he thinks you think that he’s so superior to me and my friends—”
“Now you listen to me! I deny everything you say! I have never nagged you! I have never said anything to embarrass you! I think even you will admit that in some things I have slightly more tact and patience than you have! And then out of pure friendliness, entirely for your own sake, I try to help you to understand people that you’ve misjudged, and you say I’ve bullied you! Oh, it’s perfectly beastly of you! And idiotic! If you wouldn’t fly off the handle so easily, if you’d listen and let me help you, perhaps you wouldn’t make such perfectly appalling breaks as you did the night when you insulted Lady Ouston and made everybody so frightfully uncomfortable—”
“But you backed me up! You said I was right!”
“Naturally! I said it out of loyalty to you. I’m always loyal to you. I’ve never yet failed you in that—or in anything else!”
“Oh, haven’t you! I suppose you call it loyalty to be constantly hinting and suggesting that I’m merely an ignorant business man, whereas anybody—anybody!—that has an English or French accent, any loafer living on women, is a gentleman and scholar! After all, I have managed to deal with a few European importers without feeling—”
“Go on! Explain that you’re the great Herr Geheimrat General-direktor! That you invented and developed the entire motor industry! It’s all so new and interesting! Oh, I’ve never wanted to say it, Sam, but you force me to! I have no question but that you’ve done well. There are very few more impressive people—in Zenith! But it happens that we are not in your dear Zenith, just now, but in England, and there are several things here that you don’t know so much about, and that I do know! After all, this isn’t my first trip to Europe! But you’re too self-important to let me teach you! I certainly do not mean to hint that you’re ill bred or common, but really—I hate to have to tell you this!—you certainly do seem vulgar and ill bred to people who don’t understand you—”
“To Lockert, I suppose!”
“—and to people who venture to believe that the great tradition of Europe is slightly superior to the pep and hustle of Zenith! I could teach you that tradition, but you won’t let me—”
“I suppose you’re an authority!”
“I certainly am, comparatively! After all, I have been in Europe before! And my father’s house was always full of Europeans. And I’ve read more French and German and British books, these twenty years, than you have detective stories! They accept me here. Oh, Sam, if you’d only let me help you—”
“My dear child, you can’t at the same time pan me for my vulgarity and be the tender little mother! That’s too damn much to stand! And as a matter of fact, when it comes to vulgarity—Now where the devil are all the cigarettes?”
Instantly it was more important to find the cigarettes without which no real smoker can be comfortable and emotional and quarrel actively than it was to enjoy the pain of hatred. They suspended battle to join in the hunt. He turned out his dinner-jacket, rammed his hands into the pockets of his overcoat, and yanked out bureau drawers, while she popped up from the couch to look triumphantly—then bleakly—into the
