She struggled with something in her mind for a few minutes, then she went on quietly.
“Bob, we cannot work here with friction between us. You can have my resignation here and now, or you can play the game and shut up about what I do.”
He turned fiercely on her. “You know as well as I do we can’t bust up the job now. We’ve got to go on with it.”
“It isn’t any use telling me I have to go on with a thing. I tell you I will stay on one condition, and one only. And it was the one on which I came up. Are you going to keep it or not?”
“Oh, of course, I have to keep it. I always have to do everything.”
“No, you don’t. You simply have to choose between having me go or stay. And if I stay I’ll never hurt your feelings by mentioning things I know you won’t like to hear. If you think back over this conversation you will see you began that business. And you know quite well that when people hit me I can hit them back, and I’m always going to hit them back. I’m no meek and mild angel. But I do try not to give the first blow. The world is hard enough for all of us without that first blow.”
As usual, Bob felt ashamed of himself. And he hated her awful fairness, her incorruptible strength, her fatal gift of hitting back in the sorest spot. He would have felt better if only he had known some weakness of hers he could make a dent in.
“Of course you must stay, and you can go to hell for all I care,” he retorted savagely.
“Now that’s the proper spirit. If only we would all let each other go pleasantly to hell the world would be quite a nice place to live in.”
