"Well, I suppose I could come over--every night after dinner--wash the soot and the cinders from me, get out my four-hundred-dollar go-cart, and come over here to call on my wife in my thirty-dollar evening togs, couldn't I? She lives in Graystone Hall. Where do I live? What do I get out of life, when it comes to that, Grace? When I do come here, you begin to nag me before I get settled down. I always used to say when I was a young man, that if I ever found myself married to a nagging woman, I'd just quit her!" "What do you mean by that?" she demanded imperiously. IV Again Halsey was deliberate, although he half sighed as he replied: "Pretty much what I say, Mrs. Halsey, since you ask me. The truth is, you quit me when I needed you. I have had worry enough from this business at the factory. I don't particularly care to have all other kinds of worry on top of that. You had all this place to fall back on. Your father's taken care of you. But he hasn't taken care of me very well. The fact is, I've been scapegoat about long enough!" "You seem to have learned the factory ways of talking!" "Yes, I don't know but I am getting rather plain, and common, and vulgar. It's a little different here--even from Kelly Row, let alone our place on the West Side. I fancy you're getting the North Shore accent, along with other things.--It all only means that we're that much further apart, Grace. Did you ever stop to think of that?" "I've had time to think of plenty of things," she answered bitterly. "You had plenty of time to think of some of them before you came over here," he rejoined. "You didn't like what your husband could offer you, and you chose something better which your father did offer you. You've quit me, practically. You've not been in our home twice since you came to live here. I've seen that poor baby of ours only once in a while since you left our home for this. You've not been a wife to me. That's the truth about it--I might as well not be married! That comes mighty near being the situation, since you put it up to me to answer." "Then what do you mean?" "The courts would make it a case of desertion, if you force me to say that," answered Halsey. "Now, I don't want to live on this way for ever! I'm a young man, and my career's ahead of me! I've got to choose regarding my life before long! And I'm going to choose. I'm not going to let things run on in this way any further." "That's what my father always said! Your career; your life! Where does your wife come in?" "You come in precisely where you say you want to come in, Grace. We get what we earn in this world. If you leave me and take up a life which I can't share, if you leave my house and don't care for what I can give you--why there's not much left to talk about as to where you come in. You come in _here_. I belong over there." "You're selfish! All men are, I think."