should have analyzed calmly the situation. He should have seen
that Marie too had cabin fever, induced by changing too suddenly
from carefree girlhood to the ills and irks of wifehood and
motherhood. He should have known that she had been for two months
wholly dedicated to the small physical wants of their baby, and
that if his nerves were fraying with watching that incessant
servitude, her own must be close to the snapping point; had
snapped, when dusk did not bring him home repentant.

But he did not know, and so he blamed Marie bitterly for the
wreck of their home, and he flung down all his worldly goods
before her, and marched off feeling self-consciously proud of his
martyrdom. It soothed him paradoxically to tell himself that he
was "cleaned"; that Marie had ruined him absolutely, and that he
was just ten dollars and a decent suit or two of clothes better
off than a tramp. He was tempted to go back and send the ten
dollars after the rest of the fifteen hundred, but good sense
prevailed. He would have to borrow money for his next meal, if he
did that, and Bud was touchy about such things.

He kept the ten dollars therefore, and went down to the garage
where he felt most at home, and stood there with his hands in his
pockets and the corners of his mouth tipped downward--normally
they had a way of tipping upward, as though he was secretly
amused at something--and his eyes sullen, though they carried
tiny lines at the corners to show how they used to twinkle. He
took the ten-dollar bank note from his pocket, straightened out
the wrinkles and looked at it disdainfully. As plainly as though
he spoke, his face told what he was thinking about it: that this
was what a woman had brought him to! He crumpled it up and made a