Main Street (Barnes & Noble Classics Ser - Sinclair Lewis [100]
“Carrie!”
“I mean it! What was a magnificent spectacle of generosity to you was humiliation to me. You gave me money—gave it to your mistress, if she was complaisant, and then you—”
“Carrie!”
“(Don’t interrupt me!)—then you felt you’d discharged all obligation. Well, hereafter I’ll refuse your money, as a gift. Either I’m your partner, in charge of the household department of our business, with a regular budget for it, or else I’m nothing. If I’m to be a mistress, I shall choose my lovers. Oh, I hate it—I hate it—this smirking and hoping for money—and then not even spending it on jewels as a mistress has a right to, but spending it on double-boilers and socks for you! Yes indeed! You’re generous! You give me a dollar, right out—the only proviso is that I must spend it on a tie for you! And you give it when and as you wish. How can I be anything but uneconomical?”
“Oh well, of course, looking at it that way—”
“I can’t shop around, can’t buy in large quantities, have to stick to stores where I have a charge account, good deal of the time, can’t plan because I don’t know how much money I can depend on. That’s what I pay for your charming sentimentalities about giving so generously. You make me—”
“Wait! Wait! You know you’re exaggerating. You never thought about that mistress stuff till just this minute! Matter of fact, you never have ‘smirked and hoped for money.’ But all the same, you may be right. You ought to run the household as a business. I’ll fig- . ure out a definite plan tomorrow, and hereafter you’ll be on a regular amount or percentage, with your own checking account.”
“Oh, that is decent of you!” She turned toward him, trying to be affectionate. But his eyes were pink and unlovely in the flare of the match with which he lighted his dead and malodorous cigar. His head drooped, and a ridge of flesh scattered with pale small bristles bulged out under his chin.
She sat in abeyance till he croaked:
“No. ’Tisn’t especially decent. It’s just fair. And God knows I want to be fair. But I expect others to be fair, too. And you’re so high and mighty about people. Take Sam Clark; best soul that ever lived, honest and loyal and a damn good fellow—”
(“Yes, and a good shot at ducks, don’t forget that!”)
(“Well, and he is a good shot, too!) Sam drops around in the evening to sit and visit, and by golly just because he takes a dry smoke and rolls his cigar around in his mouth, and maybe spits a few times, you look at him as if he was a hog. Oh, you didn’t know I was onto you, and I certainly hope Sam hasn’t noticed it, but I never miss it.”
“I have felt that way. Spitting—ugh! But I’m sorry you caught my thoughts. I tried to be nice; I tried to hide them.”
“Maybe I catch a whole lot more than you think I do!”
“Yes, perhaps you do.”
“And d’ you know why Sam doesn’t light his cigar when he’s here?”
“Why?”
“He’s so darn afraid you’ll be offended if he smokes. You scare him. Every time he speaks of the weather you jump him because he ain’t talking about poetry or Gertie—Goethe?—or some other highbrow junk. You’ve got him so leery he scarcely dares to come here.”
“Oh, I am sorry. (Though I’m sure it’s you who are exaggerating now.)”
“Well now, I don’t know as I am! And I can tell you one thing: if you keep on you’ll manage to drive away every friend I’ve got.”
“That would be horrible of me. You know I don’t mean to—Will, what is it about me that frightens Sam—if I do frighten him.”
“Oh, you do, all right! ’Stead of putting his legs up on another chair, and unbuttoning his vest, and telling a good story or maybe kidding me about something, he sits on the edge of his chair and tries to make conversation about politics, and he doesn’t even cuss, and Sam’s never real comfortable unless he can cuss a little!”
“In other words, he isn’t comfortable unless he can behave like a peasant in a mud hut!”
“Now that’ll be enough of that! You want to know how you scare him? First you deliberately