Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/283

 married people, a few married people, wherein for all their differences they were as much indissoluble parts of a whole as are the eye and hand. Their identification did not mean that they dwelt always in rosy bliss. Because he was so intimately fond of her and so sure of her, because anger and eager hot injustices are but ways of expressing trust, Martin was irritated by her and querulous with her as he would not have endured being with any other woman, any charming Orchid.

He stalked out now and then after a quarrel, disdaining to answer her, and for hours he left her alone, enjoying the knowledge that he was hurting her, that she was alone, waiting, perhaps weeping. Because he loved her and also was fond of her, he was annoyed when she was less sleek, less suave, than the women he encountered at Angus Duer's.

Mrs. Rouncefield was a worthy old waddler—beside her, Leora was shining and exquisite. But Mrs. Duer was of amber and ice. She was a rich young woman, she dressed with distinction, she spoke with finishing-school mock-melodiousness, she was ambitious, and she was untroubled by the possession of a heart or a brain. She was, indeed, what Mrs. Irving Watters believed herself to be.

In the simple gorgeousness of the Nautilus Smart set, Mrs. Clay Tredgold had petted Leora and laughed at her if she lacked a shoe-buckle or split an infinitive, but the gold-slippered Mrs. Duer was accustomed to sneer at carelessness with the most courteous and unresentable and unmistakable sneers.

As they returned by taxicab from the Duers', Martin flared:

"Don't you ever learn anything? I remember once in Nautilus we stopped on a country road and talked till—oh, darn' near dawn, and you were going to be so energetic, but here we are again to-night, with just the same thing— Good God, couldn't you even take the trouble to notice that you had a spot of soot on your nose to-night? Mrs. Duer noticed it, all right! Why are you so sloppy? Why can't you take a little care? And why can't you make an effort, anyway, to have something to say? You just sit there at dinner—you just sit and look healthy! Don't you want to help me? Mrs. Duer will probably help Angus to become president of the American Medical Association, in about twenty years, and by that time I suppose you'll have me back in Dakota as assistant to Hesselink!"

Leora had been snuggling beside him in the unusual luxury