"
"Then what is an animal?" Fanny demanded.
"A mammal."
A marked expression of distaste invaded her. "It has a nasty sound,"
she admitted with her instinctive recoiling from life. "I don't see how
we got on this subject anyhow, it's too much like sex. It seems you are
able to discuss nothing else."
"It is only nasty in your mind," he declared.
"That's exactly like you, you all over, to blame things on me. It's
convenient, I must say, but not fair nor true: it was you who got in a
wicked temper and sent Helena, who was feeling miserable, away."
"You always say the children are sick when they misbehave."
"I wish I could be as sure of you as I was of that," she answered
quickly; "for instance, when you go out in automobiles at the dances
with women."
"Now, we are beginning," he told her with emphasis; "we never had an
argument that didn't degenerate into this; and I'm sick of it."
"I thought I was the one who was sick of it," Fanny complained; "I
wonder that I don't just let you go."
"I wish you would," he said, rising; "I give you my word, I'd rather be
damned comfortably than have this endless trouble." In a position of
unassailable quiet behind his papers he told himself that the scene
with Fanny had been particularly vain because, underneath, he agreed
with her opinion about the casual expression of small emotions; he no
longer wanted it any more than she did.
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