Red Pepper laid hold of the hands upon his shoulders, and looked down into his wife’s eyes with fires burning fiercely in his own.

“You can give me all the wise advice you want to, but the fact remains.—­I have reason to be angry, and I am angry, and I can’t help it, and won’t help it!  Great heavens, I’m human!”

“Yes, dear, you’re human, and so am I. You have great provocation, and I think I’m almost as angry, in my small way, with Dr. Van Horn, as you are, now that I know.  But—­I want you somehow to keep control of yourself.  You are a gentleman, and he is not, but he is acting like a gentleman—­hush—­on the outside, I mean—­and—­you are not!”

“What!”

“Dear, are you?”

“What do you know about it?”

“From the little I saw outside the house this morning.”

He grasped her arms so tightly that he hurt her.  “Lord!  If you mean that I ought to grin at him, as he does at me, the snake in the grass—­”

“I don’t mean that, of course.  But I do think you shouldn’t allow yourself to look as if you wanted to knock him down.”

“There’s nothing in life that would give me greater satisfaction!”

He relaxed his grasp on her arms, and she let them drop from his shoulders.  She turned aside, with a little droop of the head, as if she felt it useless to argue with one so stubbornly set on his own destruction.

He looked after her.  “A big brute, am I not?  Didn’t know me before, did you?  Thought I was all fine, warm heart and blarneying words.  Well, I’m not.  When a thing like this gets hold of me I’m—­well, I won’t shock your pretty ears by putting it into words.”

He walked out of the room, leaving her standing looking after him with a strange expression on her face.  Before she had moved, however, the door burst open again, and he was striding across the floor to her, to seize her in his arms.

“I am a brute, and I know it, but I’m not so far gone as not to realize I’m wreaking my temper on the one I love best in the world.  Forget it, darling, and don’t worry about me.  I’ve been through this sort of thing times enough before.  Best not try to reform me—­let me have my fling.  I’m no Job nor Moses,—­I wasn’t built that way.”

She lifted her head, and the action was full of spirit.  “I don’t want you a Job or a Moses, but a man!  It’s not manly to act as you are acting now.”

He threw up his head.  “Not manly!  That’s a new one.  According to your code is there no just anger in the world?”

“Just anger, but not sane rage.  You have reason to be angry but there’s no reason in the world why you should let it consume you.  Red, dear, why not—­bank the fires?”

He stared down into her upturned face.  He had thought he knew her, heart and soul, but he found himself thoroughly astonished by this new attitude.  He was so accustomed to a charming compliance in her, he could hardly realize that he was being brought to book in a manner at once so felicitous yet so firm.  She gave him back his scrutiny without flinching, and somehow, though she put him in the wrong, he had never loved her better.  Here was a comrade who could understand and influence him!