“So you saw Charlie Loomis again to-day. Where?”
“Oh, my!” she sighed. “Have we got to go over all that again?”
“Over all the fuss you made the last time I mentioned Charlie’s name. I thought we settled it you were going to be a little more sensible about him.”
“Yes,” Collinson returned. “I was going to be more sensible about him, because you were going to be more sensible about him. Wasn’t that the agreement?”
She gave him a hard glance, tossed her head so that the curls of her bobbed hair fluttered prettily, and with satiric mimicry repeated his question: “‘Agreement! Wasn’t that the agreement?’ Oh, my, but you do make me tired, talking about ‘agreements’! As if it was a crime my going to a vaudeville matinée with a man kind enough to notice that my husband never takes me anywhere!”
“Did you go to a vaudeville with him to-day?”
“No, I didn’t!” she said. “I was talking about the time when you made such a fuss. I didn’t go anywhere with him to-day.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Collinson said. “I wouldn’t have stood for it.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t?” she cried, and added a shrill laugh as further comment. “You ‘wouldn’t have stood for it!’ How very, very dreadful!”
“Never mind,” he returned doggedly. “We went over all that the last time, and you understand me: I’ll have no more foolishness about Charlie Loomis.”
“How nice of you! He’s a friend of yours; you go with him yourself; but your wife mustn’t even look at him just because he happens to be the one man that amuses her a little. That’s fine!”
“Never mind,” Collinson said again. “You say you saw him to-day. I want to know where.”
“Do you? I’ve got to answer for every minute of my day, do I?”
“I want to know where you saw Charlie Loomis.”
She tossed her curls again, and laughed. “Isn’t it funny!” she said. “Just because I like a man, he’s the one person I can’t have anything to do with! Just because he’s kind and jolly and amusing and I like his jokes and his thoughtfulness toward a woman, when he’s with her, I’m not to be allowed to see him at all! But my _husband_—oh, that’s entirely different! _He_ can go out with Charlie whenever he likes and have a good time, while I stay home and wash the dishes! Oh, it’s a lovely life!”
Instead of answering his question, she looked at him plaintively, and allowed tears to shine along her lower eyelids. “Why do you treat me like this?” she asked in a feeble voice. “Why can’t I have a man friend if I want to? I do like Charlie Loomis. I do like him——”