broken words:

"Go--away--go--away--and--leave--me--alone." Nor is the tone all
anguish, anger finds its place there as well, and this bewilders you
still more. You could not know, of course, that Felicia is angry at
you for having seen her cry.

"I can't go away and leave you like this," you say.

The shoulders shake still harder, the sobs are louder, for sympathy is
hard to bear in such moments of humiliation--but this too you find out
later.

You walk across the room, helplessly, hopelessly. You murmur forth
apologies, though you don't know for what you are apologizing, and
words of endearment and of sympathy, though you can't tell what it is
you are sympathetic about. You would do anything, abase yourself to
any degree, to stop the noise of sobbing which is slowly sapping your
manhood.

You stand looking down on poor Felicia--what _is_ the matter with her?
What has happened?

"I don't believe you can be well, my darling," you are fool enough to
say. Inside you your other self is grumbling:

"Well, I'm hanged if _I_ understand women!"

If only she would stop; she must have been crying ten minutes, and you
have aged years. If only you understood why, how much easier it would
be! The only thing you do understand is that whatever you say and
whatever you do, or whether it's sympathy or silence, it's wrong.

There is a knock on the door.

"Dinner is served," says a voice, and you (feeling like a quitter, but
you can't stand the sight of her any longer) say:

"Felicia, I'm going down. I don't seem to be doing you any good----"

Felicia raises her head.

"You're not!" says she spitefully. They're the first words she has
spoken since she pleaded with you in agonized tones to "let her be."

Then, as you sit down to the mockery of oysters and soup, anger rises
in you. What creatures women are! Hasn't a man a right to ask why
dinner isn't ready in his own house without the sky falling? You look
at your watch; more than half an hour late. Well, why wasn't it ready?
Why? When a man comes home tired from the office, he has a right to
expect his dinner to be ready. Yes, by Jove! and a right to ask "Why?"
and a right, too, to expect a cheerful, pleasant wife! What struck
Felicia, anyway? and in spite of your anger, pity sweeps over you for
poor little Felicia crying upstairs, and you rise and go to the door,
angry and distressed, while your inner self tells you pity is unmanly.
You feel abused and bruised; how s