Presbury was about to lift a cup of cafe au lait to his lips. Instead, he turned it over into the platter of eggs and bacon. "We--Mildred and I," pursued his bride, "were left with only forty-odd thousand between us. Of course, we had to live. So, naturally, there's very little left." Presbury was shaking so violently that his head and arms waggled like a jumping-jack's. He wrapped his elegant white fingers about the arms of his chair to steady himself. In a suffocated voice he said: "Do you mean to say that you have only seven thousand dollars in the world?" "Only half that," corrected she. "Oh, dear, how my head aches! Less than half that, for there are some debts." She was impatient for the explosion; the agony of her feet and head needed outlet and relief. But he disappointed her. That was one of the situations in which one appeals in vain to the resources of language. He shrank and sank back in his chair, his jaw dropped, and he vented a strange, imbecile cackling laugh. It was not an expression of philosophic mirth, of sense of the grotesqueness of an anti-climax. It was not an expression of any emotion whatever. It was simply a signal from a mind temporarily dethroned. "What are you laughing at?" she said sharply. His answer was a repetition of the idiotic sound. "What's the matter with you?" demanded she. "Please close your mouth." It was a timely piece of advice; for his upper and false teeth had become partially dislodged and threatened to drop upon the shirt-bosom gayly showing between the lapels of his dark-blue silk house-coat. He slowly closed his mouth, moving his teeth back into place with his tongue--a gesture that made her face twitch with rage and disgust. "Seven thousand dollars," he mumbled dazedly. "I said less than half that," retorted she sharply. "And I--thought you were--rich." A peculiar rolling of the eyes and twisting of the lips gave her the idea that he was about to vent that repulsive sound again. "Don't you laugh!" she cried. "I can't bear your laugh--even at its best." Suddenly he galvanized into fury. "This is an outrage!" he cried, waving his useless-looking white fists. "You have swindled me--SWINDLED me!" Her head stopped aching. The pains in her feet either ceased or she forgot them. In a suspiciously calm voice she said: "What do you mean?" "I mean that you are a swindler!" he shouted, banging one fist on the table and waving the other. She acted as though his meaning were just dawning upon her. "Do you mean," said she tranquilly, "that you married me for money?" "I mean that I thought you a substantial woman, and that I find you are an adventuress." "Did you think," inquired she, "that any woman who had money would marry YOU?" She laughed very quietly. "You ARE a fool!" He sat back to look at her. This mode of combat in such circumstances puzzled him.