They say it's
exceptional to have one settled under four or five years."
"Oh ..." Muriel daringly changed her tack, "why don't you go to work,
you la-azy!"
"At what?" he demanded abruptly.
"Why, at anything, I suppose. You're still a young man."
"If that's encouragement, I'm much obliged," he answered dryly--and then
with sudden weariness: "Does it bother you particularly that I don't
want to work?"
"It doesn't bother me--but, it does bother a lot of people who claim--"
"Oh, God!" he said brokenly, "it seems to me that for three years I've
heard nothing about myself but wild stories and virtuous admonitions.
I'm tired of it. If you don't want to see us, let us alone. I don't
bother my former friends.' But I need no charity calls, and no criticism
disguised as good advice--" Then he added apologetically: "I'm
sorry--but really, Muriel, you mustn't talk like a lady slum-worker even
if you are visiting the lower middle classes." He turned his bloodshot
eyes on her reproachfully--eyes that had once been a deep, clear blue,
that were weak now, strained, and half-ruined from reading when he
was drunk.
"Why do you say such awful things?" she protested.
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