“Criticize you?  Lord, I should say not.  They all keep telling me you’re the swellest girl they ever saw.”

“Well, I’ve just fancied——­The merchants probably think I’m too fussy about shopping.  I’m afraid I bore Mr. Dashaway and Mr. Howland and Mr. Ludelmeyer.”

“I can tell you how that is.  I didn’t want to speak of it but since you’ve brought it up:  Chet Dashaway probably resents the fact that you got this new furniture down in the Cities instead of here.  I didn’t want to raise any objection at the time but——­After all, I make my money here and they naturally expect me to spend it here.”

“If Mr. Dashaway will kindly tell me how any civilized person can furnish a room out of the mortuary pieces that he calls——­” She remembered.  She said meekly, “But I understand.”

“And Howland and Ludelmeyer——­Oh, you’ve probably handed ’em a few roasts for the bum stocks they carry, when you just meant to jolly ’em.  But rats, what do we care!  This is an independent town, not like these Eastern holes where you have to watch your step all the time, and live up to fool demands and social customs, and a lot of old tabbies always busy criticizing.  Everybody’s free here to do what he wants to.”  He said it with a flourish, and Carol perceived that he believed it.  She turned her breath of fury into a yawn.

“By the way, Carrie, while we’re talking of this:  Of course I like to keep independent, and I don’t believe in this business of binding yourself to trade with the man that trades with you unless you really want to, but same time:  I’d be just as glad if you dealt with Jenson or Ludelmeyer as much as you ran, instead of Howland & Gould, who go to Dr. Gould every last time, and the whole tribe of ’em the same way.  I don’t see why I should be paying out my good money for groceries and having them pass it on to Terry Gould!”

“I’ve gone to Howland & Gould because they’re better, and cleaner.”

“I know.  I don’t mean cut them out entirely.  Course Jenson is tricky—­give you short weight—­and Ludelmeyer is a shiftless old Dutch hog.  But same time, I mean let’s keep the trade in the family whenever it is convenient, see how I mean?”

“I see.”

“Well, guess it’s about time to turn in.”

He yawned, went out to look at the thermometer, slammed the door, patted her head, unbuttoned his waistcoat, yawned, wound the clock, went down to look at the furnace, yawned, and clumped up-stairs to bed, casually scratching his thick woolen undershirt.

Till he bawled, “Aren’t you ever coming up to bed?” she sat unmoving.

CHAPTER IX

I

She had tripped into the meadow to teach the lambs a pretty educational dance and found that the lambs were wolves.  There was no way out between their pressing gray shoulders.  She was surrounded by fangs and sneering eyes.