The room was drab-colored and ill-ventilated—­Kennicott did not “believe in opening the windows so darn wide that you heat all outdoors.”  The stale air seemed never to change.  In the light from the hall they were two lumps of bedclothes with shoulders and tousled heads attached.

She begged, “I didn’t mean to wake you up, dear.  And please don’t smoke.  You’ve been smoking so much.  Please go back to sleep.  I’m sorry.”

“Being sorry ’s all right, but I’m going to tell you one or two things.  This falling for anybody’s say-so about medical jealousy and competition is simply part and parcel of your usual willingness to think the worst you possibly can of us poor dubs in Gopher Prairie.  Trouble with women like you is, you always want to argue.  Can’t take things the way they are.  Got to argue.  Well, I’m not going to argue about this in any way, shape, manner, or form.  Trouble with you is, you don’t make any effort to appreciate us.  You’re so damned superior, and think the city is such a hell of a lot finer place, and you want us to do what you want, all the time——­”

“That’s not true!  It’s I who make the effort.  It’s they—­it’s you—­who stand back and criticize.  I have to come over to the town’s opinion; I have to devote myself to their interests.  They can’t even see my interests, to say nothing of adopting them.  I get ever so excited about their old Lake Minniemashie and the cottages, but they simply guffaw (in that lovely friendly way you advertise so much) if I speak of wanting to see Taormina also.”

“Sure, Tormina, whatever that is—­some nice expensive millionaire colony, I suppose.  Sure; that’s the idea; champagne taste and beer income; and make sure that we never will have more than a beer income, too!”

“Are you by any chance implying that I am not economical?”

“Well, I hadn’t intended to, but since you bring it up yourself, I don’t mind saying the grocery bills are about twice what they ought to be.”

“Yes, they probably are.  I’m not economical.  I can’t be.  Thanks to you!”

“Where d’ you get that ’thanks to you’?”

“Please don’t be quite so colloquial—­or shall I say vulgar?”

“I’ll be as damn colloquial as I want to.  How do you get that ’thanks to you’?  Here about a year ago you jump me for not remembering to give you money.  Well, I’m reasonable.  I didn’t blame you, and I said I was to blame.  But have I ever forgotten it since—­practically?”

“No.  You haven’t—­practically!  But that isn’t it.  I ought to have an allowance.  I will, too!  I must have an agreement for a regular stated amount, every month.”

“Fine idea!  Of course a doctor gets a regular stated amount!  Sure!  A thousand one month—­and lucky if he makes a hundred the next.”

“Very well then, a percentage.  Or something else.  No matter how much you vary, you can make a rough average for——­”