The Pit by Frank Norris

Author:Frank Norris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
Publisher: epubBooks Classics
Published: 2014-11-18T16:00:00+00:00

VII

One morning in November of the same year Laura joined her husband at breakfast, preoccupied and a little grave, her mind full of a subject about which, she told herself, she could no longer keep from speaking. So soon as an opportunity presented itself, which was when Jadwin laid down his paper and drew his coffee–cup towards him, Laura exclaimed:

"Curtis."

"Well, old girl?"

"Curtis, dear, … when is it all going to end—your speculating? You never used to be this way. It seems as though, nowadays, I never had you to myself. Even when you are not going over papers and reports and that, or talking by the hour to Mr. Gretry in the library—even when you are not doing all that, your mind seems to be away from me—down there in La Salle Street or the Board of Trade Building. Dearest, you don't know. I don't mean to complain, and I don't want to be exacting or selfish, but—sometimes I—I am lonesome. Don't interrupt," she said, hastily. "I want to say it all at once, and then never speak of it again. Last night, when Mr. Gretry was here, you said, just after dinner, that you would be all through your talk in an hour. And I waited…. I waited till eleven, and then I went to bed. Dear I—I—I was lonesome. The evening was so long. I had put on my very prettiest gown, the one you said you liked so much, and you never seemed to notice. You told me Mr. Gretry was going by nine, and I had it all planned how we would spend the evening together."

But she got no further. Her husband had taken her in his arms, and had interrupted her words with blustering exclamations of self–reproach and self–condemnation. He was a brute, he cried, a senseless, selfish ass, who had no right to such a wife, who was not worth a single one of the tears that by now were trembling on Laura's lashes.

"Now we won't speak of it again," she began. "I suppose I am selfish—"

"Selfish, nothing!" he exclaimed. "Don't talk that way. I'm the one—"

"But," Laura persisted, "some time you will—get out of this speculating for good? Oh, I do look forward to it so! And, Curtis, what is the use? We're so rich now we can't spend our money. What do you want to make more for?"

"Oh, it's not the money," he answered. "It's the fun of the thing; the excitement—"

"That's just it, the 'excitement.' You don't know, Curtis. It is changing you. You are so nervous sometimes, and sometimes you don't listen to me when I talk to you. I can just see what's in your mind. It's wheat—wheat—wheat, wheat—wheat—wheat, all the time. Oh, if you knew how I hated and feared it!"

"Well, old girl, that settles it. I wouldn't make you unhappy a single minute for all the wheat in the world."

"And you will stop speculating?"

"Well, I can't pull out all in a moment, but just as soon as a chance comes I'll get out of the market.

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