“A forbidden relationship!” said the materialists.
“It is a spiritual marriage!”
“Or incest,” suggested an anarchist.
Facts remained facts, but the sympathy was on the wane. Real life, stripped of All make-believe, confronted them and began to take revenge.
The lawyer practised his profession, but the wife’s profession was practised by a maid and a nurse. Therefore she had no occupation. The want of occupation encouraged brooding, and she brooded a great deal over her position. She found it unsatisfactory. Was it right that an intellectual woman like her should spend her days in idleness? Once her husband had ventured to remark that no one compelled her to live in idleness. He never did it again.
“She had no profession.”
“True; to be idle was no profession. Why didn’t she nurse the baby?”
“Nurse the baby? She wanted a profession which brought in money.”
“Was she such a miser, then? She had already more than she knew how to spend; why should she want to earn money?”
“To be on an equal footing with him.”