Free At Fault by Kate Chopin

wife in so handy a receptacle.
    Seeking once a volume of Ruskin's Miscellanies, he discovered that it
had been employed to support the dismantled leg of a dressing bureau.
On another occasion, a volume of Schopenhauer, which he had been at
much difficulty and expense to procure, Emerson's Essays, and two
other volumes much prized, he found had served that lady as weights to
hold down a piece of dry goods which she had sponged and spread to dry
on an available section of roof top.
    He was glad enough to transport them all back to the safer refuge of
the kitchen closet, and pay the hired girl a secret stipend to guard
them.
    Mr. Worthington regarded women as being of peculiar and unsuitable
conformation to the various conditions of life amid which they are
placed; with strong moral proclivities, for the most part subservient
to a weak and inadequate mentality.
    It was not his office to remodel them; his rôle was simply to endure
with patience the vagaries of an order of human beings, who after all,
offered an interesting study to a man of speculative habit, apart from
their usefulness as propagators of the species.
    As regards this last qualification, Mrs. Worthington had done less
than her fair share, having but one child, a daughter of twelve, whose
training and education had been assumed by an aunt of her father's, a
nun of some standing in the Sacred Heart Convent.
    Quite a different type of man was Jack Dawson, Lou's husband. Short,
round, young, blonde, good looking and bald—as what St. Louis man
past thirty is not? he rejoiced in the agreeable calling of a
traveling salesman.
    On the occasions when he was at home; once in two weeks—sometimes
seldomer—never oftener—the small flat was turned inside out and
upside down. He filled it with noise and merriment. If a theater party
were not on hand, it was a spin out to Forest park behind a fast team,
closing with a wine supper at a road-side restaurant. Or a card party
would be hastily gathered to which such neighbors as were congenial
were bid in hot haste; deficiencies being supplied from his large
circle of acquaintances who happened not to be on the road, and who at
the eleventh hour were rung up by telephone. On such occasions Jack's
voice would be heard loud in anecdote, introduced in some such wise as
"When I was in Houston, Texas, the other day," or "Tell you what it
is, sir, those fellers over in Albuquerque are up to a thing or two."
    One of his standing witticisms was to inquire in a stage whisper of
Belle or Lou—whether the little gal over the way had taken the pledge
yet.
    This gentleman and his wife were on the most amiable of terms
together, barring the small grievance that he sometimes lost money at
poker. But as losing was exceptional with him, and as he did not make
it a matter of conscience to keep her at all times posted as to the
fluctuations of his luck, this grievance had small occasion to show
itself.
    What he thought of his wife, might best be told in his own language:
that Lou was up to the mark and game every time; feminine
characteristics which he apparently held in high esteem.
    The two ladies in question had almost reached the terminus of their
ride, when Mrs. Worthington remarked incidentally to her friend, "It
was nothing in the God's world but pure sass brought those two fellers
to see you last night, Lou."
    Mrs. Dawson bit her lip and the cast in her eye became more
accentuated, as it was apt to do when she was ruffled.
    "I notice you didn't treat 'em any too cool yourself," she retorted.
    "Oh, they weren't my company, or I'd a give 'em a piece of my mind
pretty quick. You know they're married, and they know you're married,
and they hadn't a bit o' business there."
    "They're perfect gentlemen, and I don't see what business 'tis of
yours, anyway."
    "Oh that's a horse of another color," replied Mrs. Worthington,
bridling and relapsing into injured silence for the period of ten
seconds, when she resumed, "I hope they ain't going to poke