I'm through with you entirely." "It's a lie," he said, driven to a corner and knowing no other excuse.
"Lie, eh!" she said, fiercely, but with returning reserve; "you may call it a lie if you want to, but I know." "It's a lie, I tell you," he said, in a low, sharp voice.

"You've been searching around for some cheap accusation for months and now you think you have it.

You think you'll spring something and get the upper hand.
Well, I tell you, you can't.

As long as I'm in this house I'm master of it, and you or any one else won't dictate to me--do you hear ?" He crept toward her with a light in his eye that was ominous.

Something in the woman's cool, cynical, upper-handish manner, as if she were already master, caused him to feel for the moment as if he could strangle her.
She gazed at him--a pythoness in humor.
"I'm not dictating to you," she returned; "I'm telling you what I want." The answer was so cool, so rich in bravado, that somehow it took the wind out of his sails.