"It's what we--what you have made it!" she answered.

"No, it isn't; it's what _you_ have made it! I tell you, you were bored
to death; you wanted noise and world! Remember how I used to come home
from the office every night, and begrudged the moments when any one
called? I wanted only you; I talked over my cases with you, my hopes and
my ambitions; but you mighty soon got sick of that--you yawned, you were
sleepy, and you wanted to go about; you thought it was silly staying
cooped up like that, and seeing no one, going nowhere! It was stupid for
you, you were bored to death, you wanted noise and excitement, to spend
money, to see and be seen,--as if that game was worth the candle in a
God-forsaken hole of a place like Mount Hope! You killed my ambition
then and there; I saw it was no use. You wanted the results, but you
wouldn't pay the price in self-denial and patience, and so we rushed
into debt and it's been a scramble ever since! I've begged and borrowed
and cheated to keep afloat!"

"And I was the cause of it all?" she demanded with lazy scorn of him.

"There was a time when I stood a chance of doing something, but I've
fooled my opportunities away!"

"What of the promises you made me when we were married--what about
them?" she asked.

"You created conditions in which I could not keep them!" he said.

"I seem to have been wholly, at fault; at least from your point of view;
but don't you suppose there is something _I_ could say? Do you suppose