A lady and her husband

by Amber Reeves Blanco White

James let go her hands that he might clasp his own behind his back. "I rather gather that Mr. Trent believes in women leading a sheltered life. Dew-sprinkled flowers and bloomy grapes and that sort of thing. He was distressed at the idea of your going among the girls, who don't meet his ideas of nice people. And on the other hand he seemed to fear that you would prove a channel for Rosemary's revolutionary doctrines—want to hand over the business to the London County Council, or whatever the theory of the moment is."

Mary could laugh. "Dear Trent—to tell you the truth, though I wouldn't care to admit it to Rosemary, I've only the dimmest notion of her theories! It's a subject on which I've felt too ignorant for discussion. But, seriously, James, how can I undertake the work you suggest if one of the directors objects?" For a moment she felt grateful to Trent.

"I don't think we shall hear much more of Trent's objection, my dear, and even if his manners were worse than I think them, it's of no consequence. I made him a director because I thought it more fair to him, but until I retire I, and not Trent, am at the head of the firm." He spoke in his business voice.

There was nothing very hopeful in that, and Mary felt weakly inclined for a compromise. "You'll give me a night to think it over, won't you, James?" she asked. "It's just possible I might discover an argument that would send you and your old plan packing."

James laughed and kissed her. "Oh, I'm quite ready to allow Rosemary her share in the glory of convincing you. I'm sure that not even Anthony could have lured her out if she had known that the assault was to be made to-night. Think it over as much as you like, but I don't expect you'll find your argument!"

There was nothing more to say, the matter was settled for the evening, and James became aware of the fact that it was ten o'clock. Moreover, he was in the drawing-room, whereas at ten o'clock, if they were alone, he was accustomed to be in his study. Mary did not want him, she had turned back to her knitting, and she would soon be going to bed. He waited a moment, to be sure that she did not want him, but when it came she seemed quite to expect his good-night.

Nevertheless, Mary did not go to bed. She lay back in her chair and tried, in the interval that he had left her, to bring some pertinent order into her thoughts. She had not only to decide what she should do, but, equally difficult, how she should put the thing to James. She knew that she was not good at sustaining an argument even when she had thought it out carefully beforehand.

She tried to state the case very plainly to herself, James's side and the other side. After all, that was the important thing, it did not matter so much that he should be pleased with the answer he got from her. Just now she had been cowardly; it was only fair to him that he should know what was really in her mind. She had slid too much into the habit of answering James's mood and not his arguments.

As she thought it seemed to her the case against her going was, in substance, Trent's case. He, silly boy, tried to make it a shackle to hold all women. She did not believe in these lofty generalisations, but she doubted, all the same, whether she might not be wise to respect the prohibition for herself. She was not one of the women who were fitted, either by training or by an adventurous disposition to work with men, at men's affairs, on a neutral footing. Men, for her, had been creatures to be pleased and to be cared for, and men had loved her and been good to her precisely because of this attitude of hers. To do what James asked would be to approach them on a different basis, and she felt it was hard she should be asked to risk what she had been so proud of—her successful relations with her husband and her son.

She could see, as she thought it over, that all her life had been passed in this cherishing of individuals. She had learned to study them, to respond to them, to guide herself and them through intricate problems of character and conduct. It had not been easy, she could remember times when she had lost her way. But it had always been this person and that, people she knew, people whose lives she understood. She had never been called upon to deal with them in numbers, as classes, to rule them with rough and ready decisions. Moreover, though there had been limits to her time, her strength, her money, and even, she felt remorsefully, to her good-will, she had at any rate been sure of the principles on which she based her decisions. She had known what she wanted for them all, for James, for the children, for the servants. These waitresses and factory girls were beyond her ken. How was she to know what she wanted for them or what she ought to want? If she found out how could she then count the forces available to help her or discover what barriers stood in her way? If it had been simple to arrange proper conditions it would not have been left all this time for her to do.