“It has no nobility!” she cried suddenly, jumping and almost spilling beef-barley soup on his white, upturned face.

“Yes,” he said patiently. “I understand what you mean, Annie. It's true that Tony Bonasaro has no nobility. He's a slum kid trying to get out of a bad environment, you see, and those words… everybody uses those words in - “

“They do not!” she said, giving him a forbidding look “What do you think I do when I go to the feed store in town? What do you think I say? “Now Tony, give me a bag of that effing pigfeed and a bag of that bitchly cow-corn and some of that Christing ear-mite medicine”? And what do you think he says to me? “You're effing right, Annie, comin right the eff up”?” She looked at him, her face now like a sky which might spawn tornadoes at any instant. He lay back, frightened. The soup-bowl was tilting in her hands. One, then two drops fell on the coverlet.

“And then do I go down the street to the bank and say to Mrs Bollinger, “Here's one big bastard of a check and you better give me fifty effing dollars just as effing quick as you can”? Do you think that when they put me up there on the stand in Den - “ A stream of muddy-colored beef soup fell on the coverlet. She looked at it, then at him, and her face twisted. “There! Look what you made me do!”

“I'm sorry.”

“Sure! You! Are!” she screamed, and threw the bowl into the corner, where it shattered. Soup splashed up the wall. He gasped.

She turned off then. She just sat there for what might have been thirty seconds. During that time Paul Sheldon's heart did not seem to beat at all.

She roused a little at a time, and suddenly she tittered.

“I have such a temper,” she said.

“I'm sorry,” he said out of a dry throat.

“You should be.” Her face went slack again and she looked moodily at the wall. He thought she was going to blank out again, but instead she fetched a sigh and lifted her bulk from the bed.