"Well, you shan't have it. I'll justabout sell the whole lot. You can't prevent me." Rose's sobs burst forth afresh. Her friend ran up to her and took her in her arms, badly squeezing poor David, who became purple and entirely animal in his remonstrances. Then the two women fairly stormed at Reuben. They told him he was a money-grubber, an unnatural father, that he had been drinking, that he ought to be ashamed of himself, that he had only got what he deserved. Reuben tried to stand up to them, but Rose had an amazing power of invective, and her friend, who was a spinster, but sometimes forgot it, filled in the few available pauses so effectively that in the end the wretched husband was driven from the room, feeling that the world held even worse things than wealthy and perfidious libertines. § 11. Of course there was a reconciliation. Such things had begun to loom rather large in Reuben's married life. He had never had reconciliations with Naomi--the storms had not been fierce enough to warrant a special celebration of the calms. But he and Rose were always being reconciled. At first he had looked upon these episodes as sweets of matrimony, more blessed than any amount of honeymoon, but now he had gone a stage further and saw them merely as part of the domestic ritual--that very evening when he held Rose and the baby together in his big embrace he knew that in a day or two he would be staling the ceremony by another repetition. He now began to crave for her active interest in his concerns. Hitherto he had not much missed it, it had been enough for him if when he came in tired and dispirited from his day's work, she had kissed him and rumpled back the hair from his forehead and called him her "poor old man." Her caresses and sympathy had filled the gap left by her help and understanding. But now he began to want something more. He saw the hollowness of her endearments, for she did nothing to make his burden lighter. She refused to realise the seriousness of his position--left stranded with an under taking which he would never have started if he had not been certain of increased capital in the near future. She was still extravagant and fond of pleasure, she either could not or would not master the principles of economy; she saw the fat lands of Odiam round her, and laughed at her husband when he told her that he was crippled with expenses, and in spite of crops and beasts and barns must live as if he were a poor man.