The Day Afterward

By the pitiless light of early morning, the house was even uglier than at night. With an irreverence essentially modern, Dorothy decided, while she was dressing, to have all the furniture taken out into the back yard, where she could look it over at her leisure. She would make a bonfire of most of it, or, better yet, have it cut into wood for the fireplace. Thus Uncle Ebeneezer’s cumbrous bequest might be quickly transformed into comfort.

“And,” thought Dorothy, “I’ll take down that hideous portrait over the mantel before I’m a day older.”

But when she broached the subject to Harlan, she found him unresponsive and somewhat disinclined to interfere with the existing order of things. “We’ll be here only for the Summer,” he said, “so what’s the use of 19 monkeying with the furniture and burning up fifty or sixty beds? There’s plenty of wood in the cellar.”

19

“I don’t like the furniture,” she pouted.

“My dear,” said Harlan, with patronising kindness, “as you grow older, you’ll find lots of things on the planet which you don’t like. Moreover, it’ll be quite out of your power to cremate ’em, and it’s just as well to begin adjusting yourself now.”

This bit of philosophy irritated Mrs. Carr unbearably. “Do you mean to say,” she demanded, with rising temper, “that you won’t do as I ask you to?”

“Do you mean to say,” inquired Harlan, wickedly, in exact imitation of her manner, “that you won’t do as I ask you to? Four weeks ago yesterday, if I remember rightly, you promised to obey me!”

“Don’t remind me of what I’m ashamed of!” flashed Dorothy. “If I’d known what a brute you were, I’d never have married you! You may be sure of that!”

Claudius Tiberius insinuated himself between Harlan’s feet and rubbed against his trousers, leaving a thin film of black fur in his wake. Being fastidious about his personal 20 appearance, Harlan kicked Claudius Tiberius vigorously, grabbed his hat and went out, slamming the door, and whistling with an exaggerated cheerfulness.

20

“Brute!” The word rankled deeply as he went downhill with his hands in his pockets, whistling determinedly. So Dorothy was sorry she had married him! After all he’d done for her, too. Giving up a good position in New York, taking her half-way around the world on a 

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