"Oh, goody! Now we can have a picnic every day—every time we have a meal, and we can have meals every time we want to!"
"How do you know?" asked Robert glumly.
Sara cocked her head on one side.
"I've been talking to Grandma, and, oh, lots of people. Do you like doughnuts and popcorn?"
It was these two words that took the last gleam of hope from the heart of Alice Marcey. Instinct had told her that her husband was wrong from the first—but what he had done was to get angry at the Domestic Situation—and that, far from giving in to him, she should have "humored" him, which means in polite language that, instead of treating your fellow man as an equal, you apparently agree with him with all alacrity, in the meanwhile working out for him his destiny yourself as seems best to you. Alice had been weak, and she knew it. What hurt her most was that Tom was fantastic, that this scheme of his could be called by no other name.
They started off that evening to a restaurant, Tom giving orders to the treacherously passive Laurie.
"Put out plenty of milk and zwieback for the children."
"Yes, sir!" replied Laurie. But Alice seemed to sniff other viands than those mentioned by her husband. Since she was standing by him, she intended to do so.
"What is that, Laurie?" she demanded.
"Oh, I was frying up a bit of somethin' for meself. There's quite a lot of leavings around, you know, Mis' Marcey."
Alice listened with aversion to her husband's cheery assurances, "This'll bring 'em around, you'll see, in a day or two." At that moment, men, and especially husbands, annoyed Alice Marcey. For one moment, her hand, not as adequate as it should have been, had left