Contrary to her custom Yetta did not face this situation frankly. She tried to avoid thinking of it. When it forced itself on her, she told herself, "Of course I want children." Almost every time she had heard this business of maternity referred to, its painful side had been emphasized. She had heard a great deal about the "heroism of motherhood." Her attitude towards the sexual side of marriage was very like her attitude to the dentist. And no matter how firmly we have decided to go to the dentist, we are a bit reluctant about starting. Yetta did what she could to postpone the duty she had firmly decided to perform stoically and gamely.
She really thought about this matter surprisingly little. All she had read in the poets about the joys of passionate love she thought of as romantic, and she was in full reaction against romance. In real life she had never encountered any one who even remotely resembled Heloïse or Francesca or Melisande or the Queen Isolde. The married women she knew, the mothers of children, did not give any sign of such dizzying emotions.
The reality of love she had decided was a spiritual matter. The night Isadore had kissed her in the dark of the office, she had been too frightened to appreciate it as a caress. He had never stirred her emotions as Walter had. She was not afraid to think of them both at the same time any more. She calmly knew that her love for Isadore was the more real. But still she could not look forward to his complete recovery without a slight tremor.
When Isadore seemed on the point of talking about this, she adroitly changed the subject. She always came to his room to kiss him "good night," and the first thing in the morning after she was dressed she came to his bedside and kissed him "good morning." But although she was naturally demonstrative, she carefully avoided any disturbing caresses.
As Isadore gained strength the crisis inevitably approached. One moonlight night, out on the Lake in their guide boat, Isadore, who had been lazily rowing, rested on his oars.
"Yetta," he said. "Sometimes I have a horrible thought—I wonder if you really love me."
Yetta, stretched out on the cushions in the stern-sheets, had been perfectly happy—at least as happy as she knew how to be—before he spoke. She knew at once what he meant, and it troubled her.
"Why, what do you mean?" she said, to gain time.
"I wonder if you know what it means—what love means—to a man?"