just keep her guessing for awhile; a week or so would do her
good. Well, he wouldn't sell the furniture--he'd just move it
into another house, and give her a darn good scare. He'd get a
better one, that had a porcelain bathtub instead of a zinc one,
and a better porch, where the kid could be out in the sun. Yes,
sir, he'd just do that little thing, and lay low and see what
Marie did about that. Keep her guessing--that was the play to
make.

Unfortunately for his domestic happiness, Bud failed to take
into account two very important factors in the quarrel. The first
and most important one was Marie's mother, who, having been a
widow for fifteen years and therefore having acquired a habit of
managing affairs that even remotely concerned her, assumed that
Marie's affairs must be managed also. The other factor was
Marie's craving to be coaxed back to smiles by the man who drove
her to tears. Marie wanted Bud to come and say he was sorry, and
had been a brute and so forth. She wanted to hear him tell how
empty the house had seemed when he returned and found her gone.
She wanted him to be good and scared with that letter. She stayed
awake until after midnight, listening for his anxious footsteps;
after midnight she stayed awake to cry over the inhuman way he
was treating her, and to wish she was dead, and so forth; also
because the baby woke and wanted his bottle, and she was teaching
him to sleep all night without it, and because the baby had a
temper just like his father.

His father's temper would have yielded a point or two, the next
day, had it been given the least encouragement. For instance, he
might have gone over to see Marie before he moved the furniture