FROM her window Alice watched them starting out. Sara was slacking; her fingers but daintily touched the kettle; Robert remonstrated. They both set it down and glared at one another. It came with definiteness to Alice that no good would come of this trip.
Tom came into the room.
"Alice," he said, reprovingly, "do you think"
"I think that with a little flexibility one could avoid a great deal of noise, if you ask me!" she flashed at him.
She knew that she lacked both dignity and tact and that these were not the tactics with which to deal with an outraged husband, but into her heart surged Sara's heady joy in ill-doing. With these words she had flung out of the window her whole basket of tricks, all the various ways in the world which she knew—and they were many—of dealing with the temperament of Tom Marcey.
"I'm not talking about noise," said Tom.
"I am," Alice retorted maddeningly, "you always raise such a pother!"
"I?" Tom inquired, scandalized.
"You," Alice insisted firmly.
Tom looked at her with gravity.
"It seems to me that every one in this house, except me, has gone mad to-day," he asserted. "I don't understand you, Alice!"
"You don't need to tell me that," said Alice, "you never have and you never will, and what's more, I don't want you to!"
