“Huh!” He did not sound impressed.  He made no answer.  He turned out of bed, his feet making one solid thud on the floor.  He marched from the room, a grotesque figure in baggy union-pajamas.  She heard him drawing a drink of water at the bathroom tap.  She was furious at the contemptuousness of his exit.  She snuggled down in bed, and looked away from him as he returned.  He ignored her.  As he flumped into bed he yawned, and casually stated: 

“Well, you’ll have plenty of privacy when we build a new house.

“When?”

“Oh, I’ll build it all right, don’t you fret!  But of course I don’t expect any credit for it.”

Now it was she who grunted “Huh!” and ignored him, and felt independent and masterful as she shot up out of bed, turned her back on him, fished a lone and petrified chocolate out of her glove-box in the top right-hand drawer of the bureau, gnawed at it, found that it had cocoanut filling, said “Damn!” wished that she had not said it, so that she might be superior to his colloquialism, and hurled the chocolate into the wastebasket, where it made an evil and mocking clatter among the debris of torn linen collars and toothpaste box.  Then, in great dignity and self-dramatization, she returned to bed.

All this time he had been talking on, embroidering his assertion that he “didn’t expect any credit.”  She was reflecting that he was a rustic, that she hated him, that she had been insane to marry him, that she had married him only because she was tired of work, that she must get her long gloves cleaned, that she would never do anything more for him, and that she mustn’t forget his hominy for breakfast.  She was roused to attention by his storming: 

“I’m a fool to think about a new house.  By the time I get it built you’ll probably have succeeded in your plan to get me completely in Dutch with every friend and every patient I’ve got.”

She sat up with a bounce.  She said coldly, “Thank you very much for revealing your real opinion of me.  If that’s the way you feel, if I’m such a hindrance to you, I can’t stay under this roof another minute.  And I am perfectly well able to earn my own living.  I will go at once, and you may get a divorce at your pleasure!  What you want is a nice sweet cow of a woman who will enjoy having your dear friends talk about the weather and spit on the floor!”

“Tut!  Don’t be a fool!”

“You will very soon find out whether I’m a fool or not!  I mean it!  Do you think I’d stay here one second after I found out that I was injuring you?  At least I have enough sense of justice not to do that.”

“Please stop flying off at tangents, Carrie.  This——­”

“Tangents?  Tangents!  Let me tell you——­”