ition old Herold was leaving. He, as parsimonious with words as in
the expression of feelings, succumbed to her cat-like cuddling. He
capitulated in the face of her unpitying ridicule, and surrendered all
to the prurient agility of a young body. Dark powers there are that set
up dependencies between man and woman. When they rule, things do not
work out in accordance with set calculation or inborn character. It
takes but a single hour of the night to bend the most sacred truth of
life into a lie.

VII

In the course of time Daniel had to provide for an increase in his
annual salary. Dorothea had made a great many innovations that cost
money. She had bought a dressing table, a number of cabinets, and a
bath tub. The lamps, dishes, bed covers, and curtains she found
old-fashioned, and simply went out and bought new ones.

Nothing gave her greater pleasure than to go shopping. Then the bills
came in, and Daniel shook his head. He begged her to be more saving, but
she would fall on his neck, and beseech and beseech until he acceded to
every single one of her wishes.

She rarely came home with empty hands. It may have been only little
things that she bought, a manikin of porcelain with a tile hat and an
umbrella, or a pagoda with a wag-head, or even merely a mouse-trap--but
they all cost money.

Philippina would be called in; Philippina was to admire the purchases.
And she would say with apparent delight: "Now ain't that sweet!" Or,
"Now that's fine; we needed a mouse-trap so bad! There was a mouse on
the clothes rack just yesterday, cross my heart, Daniel."

As to hats, dresses, stockings, shoes, laces, and blouses--when it came
to these Dorothea was a stranger to such concepts as measure or modesty.
She wanted to compete with the wives of the rich people whose parties
she attended, and next to whom she sat in the pastry shop or at the
theatre.

She was given free tickets to the theatre and the concerts. But once
when she had told Daniel that the director had sent her a ticket, he
learned from Philippina that she had bought the ticket and paid for it
with her own money. He did not call her to account, but he could not
get the thought out of his mind that she had believed she had deceived
him.

He did not accompany her on her pleasure jaunts; he wanted to work and
not double even the smallest expenditure by going with her. Dorothea had
become accustomed to this. She looked upon hi