Mrs. Talbot flattened out the creases in it and read it aloud.
"Georgia Connor--weekly--twenty dollars." And drew forth a wonderful,
round, golden double eagle. Whereupon Jim let his angry passions rise.
His wife--this cold-blooded, high-and-mighty creature, with her chin in
the air, refused him a loan on the very same day she was raised. It
was plain viciousness. It was almost a form of perversion.
Forbearance, even his, had its limits.
"Why, Georgia," continued the mother, reading the inscription from the
envelope in her hand, "how's this, they call you 'Miss,' Miss Georgia
Connor--weekly--twenty dollars."
"Oh--ho," exclaimed Jim roughly, for now he felt that it was his turn.
"Passing yourself off as unmarried, eh? A little fly work--hey? If I
am easy, I draw the line somewhere."
"I was ashamed to let them know I was married and still had to work
out," she responded evenly.
That was just the way it always happened. Georgia invariably ended up
with the best of it.
"Well, well, let it pass, though it's not right. But you ought to let
me have a dollar or two, considering. Why, I've got a right to some of
your money. You've had plenty of mine in your time."
"For value received."
"You talk of marriage as if it was bargain and sale."
Georgia's voice, which had been thin and colorless, grew suddenly thick
with the bitter memories of seven years. "It is oftentimes," she said.
"Bad bargain and cheap sale."
"And now and then it's a damned high buy, too, when a man gives up his
liberty for a daily panning from his wife, and his mother-in-law, and
kid brother."
"If I am a kid," the boy interrupted passionately, "I've brought in
more and taken out less than you the last year."
Blood called to blood, and the clan of Talbot closed around the lone
Connor.
"When he had to come out of school and go to work because you couldn't
keep a job!" screamed the elder lady.
"You big stiff," Al brought up the reënforcement half-crying with rage.
"You shut up or I'll--" Jim answered hoarsely, drawing back his fist in
menace.
Al jumped for a light chair and swung it just off the ground, meeting
the challenge. So standing, the two glowered at each other--Jim
wishing that he was twenty years younger, Al that he was three years
older.
As Georgia stood back from them hoping that she would not have to
interpose physically between the two, as had happened once or twice in
the past year, she felt more intensely than she ever had before that
her home life was very sordid and degrading to her. This eternal
jangling which seemed to run on just the same whether she took part in
it or not, was the life for snarling hyenas, not for a young woman with
an ambition for "getting on," for rising in the social scale.
The two males, finally impelled by a common doubt of the outcome,
tacitly agreed upon verbal rather than physical violence. The raucous
quarrel broke out anew. Mrs. Talbot--but you, gentle reader,
undoubtedly can surmise substantially what followed. You must have
friends who have family quarrels.
Finally there was a lull, after all three had had their says several
times over, and were trying to think up new ones.
"Jim," said Georgia slowly and deliberately, for she felt that the hour
had come, "why not make this our last quarrel?"
"That's up to you," he returned belligerently.
"By making it permanent."
"What do you mean!" answered Jim, now a trifle alarmed.
"I mean that the time has come for us to separate, for the good of all
of us."
She looked straight at him, until he dropped his red and watery eyes
before her strong gray ones. There was a pause, a solemn pause in that
poor family.
"Children," said the older woman softly and timidly, "there is such a
thing as carrying bitter words too far."
"Mother, when two people come to the situation we're in, Jim and I,"
for the first time there was a semblance of sympathy for the man in her
voice, "then I believe the only thing they can do, and stay decent, is
to separate. To go on living together when they neither like nor love
each other----"
"How do you know? I never said that," Jim said humbly.
"It is not what you say that counts. We don't love each other any
more; that was over long ago; that's the whole trouble; that's why we
quarrel; that's why you drink and I'm hateful to you--and it'll get
worse and worse and more degrading if we keep on. Oh, I feel no better
than a woman of the streets when I----"
"Georgia," Mrs. Talbot raised her eyes significantly, glancing at Al,
to warn her daughter against letting her son know a truth.
"Oh, I have been thinking this over and over--for months," continued
the wife, "and I kept putting it off. But now I'm glad I said it and
it's done."
"The church admits of only one ground for this," said Mrs. Talbot
desperately, fighting for respectability; "do you mean that Jim has----"
"I don't know----"
"No," Jim denied indignantly, "you can't accuse me of that anyway."
"And I don't care."
"You don't care?" That was a most astounding remark, clear outside his
calculations. Why--wives always cared tremendously. Every man knew
that.
"No, if need be I could forgive an act, but not a state of mind."
Mrs. Talbot found herself literally forced to take sides with Jim.
This was an attack on all tradition, on everything that she had been
taught. "Why, I never heard of such talk in my life."
But Georgia would not qualify. "Well, I think that's all." She walked
to the door. "I suppose I have seemed very hard, but it was best to
make the cut sharp and clean." There was no sign of relenting in the
set of her mouth or in her narrowed eyes; and Jim knew it was nearly
impossible to do anything with her when her nostrils grew wide like
that.
"All right," he mumbled, "have it your own way."
"Try to brace up for your own sake, if you wouldn't for mine." That
was her good-bye. She went from the room with Al.
The mother waited behind. "She'll think better of this by and by, Jim.
I'll speak to her about it now and then," she said, "and keep you in
her mind. And I'm going to the priest about it, too. It's sin she's
doing. And Jim----"
"Yes?" he grieved humbly, almost crying.
"You better go over to Father Hervey and tell him all about it."
"Yes, I'll do that same."
"Well, good-bye for now--you better go to some hotel to-night," she
gave him a dollar from the purse in her bosom, "and try and get work.
It'll make your coming back easier."
"Thanks, mother, I'll do that same. Er--I guess I'll go in and change
my collar. That'll be all right, won't it?"
"Yes, Georgia's in the dining room."
Mrs. Talbot left him. He rubbed his knuckles slowly across his eye,
his breath catching quickly. Then he spied Georgia's hand bag. There
was the trouble-money--twenty dollars, a round, golden double eagle.
He opened the handbag to--well, to look at it. He spun it; he palmed
it; he tossed it in the air, calling heads. It came tails. He tried
it again and it came heads. That settled it. He slipped the coin into
his pocket, and went out of the room. At least there was salvage in
leaving one's wife.
After supper Georgia packed up his things, every stick and stitch of
them, and with the aid of Al drew them out into the hallway.
Later in the evening a politician, one of Ed Miles', knocked at the
door.
"Good evening, ma'am, I'm from the Fortieth Ward Club. I have a
message for Mr. Connor. He's wanted at headquarters right away."
"He doesn't live here any more."
[Illustration: "He doesn't live here any more."]
The politician was perplexed.
"Where does he live?"
"I don't know," answered Georgia, shutting the door.
It was not until the next morning that she discovered the loss of her
money.
V