One time when he had just come back from
Frenna's and had been sitting in the chair near her, silently watching
her at her work, he exclaimed all of a sudden:
"Stop working. Stop it, I tell you. Put 'em away. Put 'em all away, or
I'll pinch you."
"But why--why?" Trina protested.
The dentist cuffed her ears. "I won't have you work." He took her knife
and her paint-pots away, and made her sit idly in the window the rest of
the afternoon.
It was, however, only when his wits had been stirred with alcohol that
the dentist was brutal to his wife. At other times, say three weeks of
every month, she was merely an incumbrance to him. They often quarrelled
about Trina's money, her savings. The dentist was bent upon having at
least a part of them. What he would do with the money once he had it,
he did not precisely know. He would spend it in royal fashion, no doubt,
feasting continually, buying himself wonderful clothes. The miner's idea
of money quickly gained and lavishly squandered, persisted in his mind.
As for Trina, the more her husband stormed, the tighter she drew the
strings of the little chamois-skin bag that she hid at the bottom of her
trunk underneath her bridal dress.
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