"It's all part and parcel of some singular kind of change that's been coming over you, lately, like a blight.

You haven't been yourself, at all, these few days past.
Something or other, I don't know what, has been coming between us.
You've got something else on your mind, beside me--something bigger and more important to you than I am--and--and--" He pulled out his gold cigar-case, chose and lighted a cigar to steady his nerve, and faced her with a smile--the worst tactic he could possibly have chosen in dealing with this woman.

Supremely successful in handling men, he lacked finesse and insight with the other sex; and now that lack, in his moment of need, was bringing him moment by moment nearer the edge of catastrophe.
"I don't like it at all, Waldron," she resumed, again.

"You were late, the other night, in taking me to the Flower Show.

You were late, today, for our appointment here; and the ten minutes I gave you to get ready in, stretched out to twenty before you--" He interrupted her with a gesture of uncontrollable vexation.
"Really, my dear Kate," he exclaimed, "if you--er--insist on holding me to account for every moment--" "You've been drinking, too, a little," she kept on.