So I _had_ to do it.

And to-day, someway, everything went wrong.

I burned me, and I cut me, and I used two sodas with not any cream of tartar, and I should think I didn't know anything, not anything!" And down went Billy's head into the pillows again in another burst of sobs.
With gentle yet uncompromising determination, Bertram gathered his wife into his arms and carried her to the big chair.

There, for a few minutes, he soothed and petted her as if she were a tired child--which, indeed, she was.
"Billy, this thing has got to stop," he said then.

There was a very inexorable ring of decision in his voice.
"What thing ?" "This housework business." Billy sat up with a jerk.
"But, Bertram, it isn't fair.