Terry Platt had learned to look for that flap—­they had been married four years—­to look for it, and to hate it with a morbid, unreasoning hate.  That flap of the elbow was tearing Terry Platt’s nerves into raw, bleeding fragments.

Her fingers were clenched tightly under the table, now.  She was breathing unevenly.  “If he does that again,” she told herself, “if he flaps again when he opens the second egg, I’ll scream.  I’ll scream.  I’ll scream!  I’ll sc—­”

He had scooped the first egg into his cup.  Now he picked up the second, chipped it, concentrated, straightened, then—­up went the elbow, and down, with the accustomed little flap.

The tortured nerves snapped.  Through the early morning quiet of Wetona, Wisconsin, hurtled the shrill, piercing shriek of Terry Platt’s hysteria.

“Terry!  For God’s sake!  What’s the matter!”

Orville Platt dropped the second egg, and his spoon.  The egg yolk trickled down his plate.  The spoon made a clatter and flung a gay spot of yellow on the cloth.  He started toward her.

Terry, wild-eyed, pointed a shaking finger at him.  She was laughing, now, uncontrollably.  “Your elbow!  Your elbow!”

“Elbow?” He looked down at it, bewildered; then up, fright in his face.  “What’s the matter with it?”

She mopped her eyes.  Sobs shook her.  “You f-f-flapped it.”

“F-f-f—­” The bewilderment in Orville Platt’s face gave way to anger.  “Do you mean to tell me that you screeched like that because my—­because I moved my elbow?”

“Yes.”

His anger deepened and reddened to fury.  He choked.  He had started from his chair with his napkin in his hand.  He still clutched it.  Now he crumpled it into a wad and hurled it to the centre of the table, where it struck a sugar bowl, dropped back, and uncrumpled slowly, reprovingly.  “You—­you—­” Then bewilderment closed down again like a fog over his countenance.  “But why?  I can’t see—­”

“Because it—­because I can’t stand it any longer.  Flapping.  This is what you do.  Like this.”

And she did it.  Did it with insulting fidelity, being a clever mimic.

“Well, all I can say is you’re crazy, yelling like that, for nothing.”

“It isn’t nothing.”

“Isn’t, huh?  If that isn’t nothing, what is?” They were growing incoherent.  “What d’you mean, screeching like a maniac?  Like a wild woman?  The neighbours’ll think I’ve killed you.  What d’you mean, anyway!”

“I mean I’m tired of watching it, that’s what.  Sick and tired.”

“Y’are, huh?  Well, young lady, just let me tell you something—­”

He told her.  There followed one of those incredible quarrels, as sickening as they are human, which can take place only between two people who love each other; who love each other so well that each knows with cruel certainty the surest way to wound the other; and who stab, and tear, and claw at these vulnerable spots in exact proportion to their love.