A lady and her husband

by Amber Reeves Blanco White

Mary felt as though she were a sheep and James a very large and efficient sheep-dog. "I can't!" she brought out at last. "I feel too deeply about it."

James turned back to his mantelpiece with a jerk. "Then we must differ without agreeing!" He wished to see the matter disposed of.

Mary moved back a step, and then, as his eyes were still turned away, she stood silently looking at him. This was James, this man in front of her, bending over an ash-tray. That face was the face that she knew best in the world. When he was younger she had often smoothed out that wrinkle on his forehead, and told him that if he frowned so deeply it would make his look cross. He had worn his hair differently then, too, in the past that they shared together. This was James—the man that she loved—the only man that she had ever loved. She loved him—she told herself again—wasn't that enough—wasn't that the only thing that mattered in spite of all this froth of disagreement and discussion? Wasn't she being a fool to endanger her love by irrelevant outside things? She longed suddenly to kiss his face again, to throw her arms round his neck as she had thrown them when she was young and beautiful, to feel, if she couldn't know it, that James loved her better than anything else in the world.

She moved forward and lifted her hands, and then she remembered that however closely she held him that would not be true. She knew now that James did not care first of all for her. He cared first for his work, for the business. It was natural that he should put first what had cost him such great and such continuing effort. He loved her, he felt certain of her, but when she interfered with the business she was a nuisance.... Here again she pulled herself up. It was not time yet to give way to such thoughts as these. She must still think not of herself but of the girls—how could James be expected to listen to a woman who pleaded her cause so badly!

"Of course," she said presently, "it must be very difficult for you to think that a woman can understand anything about such matters."

James interrupted her at once. "My dear Mary, it's just because you are a woman that your ideas interest me. I assure you that if this scheme had come from a man, I shouldn't have considered it for a moment. I should simply have said, 'My dear fellow, you're talking nonsense!'"

Mary did not feel able to determine whether this was true or not. She was feeling tired and very cold. "Then you have settled absolutely?" she asked him.

He hesitated for a moment, and decided to laugh. "Yes, my dear, I have," he told her, and then, with one finger, he stroked her cheek.

"You needn't have done that!" she said, and burst into tears.

James found himself, for the moment, very much at a loss. What had he done to make her behave like this? He had been extraordinarily patient with her, it couldn't be that. She wasn't a person who usually cried because she had made a mistake! Then light came. The fact was that like a good, dear, tender-hearted little goose she had planned a great sacrifice, and she was disappointed because she couldn't carry it out. Women were like that, and in her chagrin she didn't quite know what she was saying. Poor little mother!