Finally he spoke to her quietly and slowly about love and marriage. Of course Addie, in her shrewd mind, had calculated on this; his was a business that threatened to prosper, and she was attracted to him, anyway. She made her plans accordingly; she acted displeased.
“You are a poor, common tradesman,” she said bitterly, as if she were something uncommon and therefore beyond him. He felt this, too, and instead of discovering her own smallness in the retort, he only got the point she wanted him to get. He began to think himself below her. He raised his hand:
She shrugged her narrow shoulders and laughed, showing a red tongue that seemed to crouch in her mouth in a long, dented line.
“But I must do something, you say I am only——”
“You are not the sort of person—now, for instance——”
“Yes?” he questioned slowly, turning around and looking into her face.
“Well, for instance, you are hardly a hero.”
“Are heroes the style?” he asked pitifully. This made her laugh even harder.
He nodded. “Yes, that’s true—we were always quiet people. You do not like quiet people?”
He pondered awhile over this. He shook his head; after all he knew better and he was angry because he had been letting Addie lie to him.
“So, that’s the way you begin, calling me a liar, is it?” She put her hands into her hair on either side and tore at it. This had even more of an effect upon Rugo than she had expected. He beat his hands together. In spoiling the perfect oval of her head, in ruinously shaking its smooth and parted hair, she had hurt him as much as if she had shaken a holy picture.
“No, no,” he cried. “I will do something, you shall see—it is all right—it is all right.” He approached her and, touching her shoulder with his hand, he added:
She smiled. “You will do what, Rugo Amietieve?”
“I shall be less like a woman. You called me like a woman; well, you shall see.”
She came close to him, her two thin arms pressed close to her side.
“You will do something big and grand—Rugo—for me?”
He looked down at her, puzzled and quiet. The cruel mouth was half open, showing the shining line of her teeth. He nodded, but this time he moved away from her and stood staring out into the street.
She came up behind him, caught both of his hands, and, leaning forward, kissed him on the back of his neck. He tried to turn, but she held his two hands a moment longer and then broke out of the shop at a run.