“Dearest, all these we can find far better there.”
She shook her head. “I can't. I don't speak French properly, I don't understand French people. I couldn't sell my stories there or—or anything,” she finished weakly.
He jumped up, his eyes blank, hands thrust in his pockets.
“I don't get you, Mary. You don't mean—you surely can't mean, that you don't want to go to France at all? That you want to live here?”
She floundered. “I don't know, Stefan. Of course you've always talked about France, and I should love to go there and see it, and so on, but somehow I've come to think of the Byrdsnest as home—we've been so happy here—”
“Happy?” he interrupted her. “You say we've been happy?” His tone was utterly confounded.
“Yes, dear, except—except when you were so—so busy last autumn—”
He dropped down by the table, squaring himself as if to get to the bottom of a riddle.
“What is your idea of happiness, Mary, of life in fact?” he asked, in an unusually quiet voice. She felt glad that he seemed so willing to talk things over, and to concede her a point of view of her own.
“Well,” she began, feeling for her words, “my idea of life is to have a person and work that you love, and then to build—both of you—a place, a position; to have friends—be part of the community—so that your children—the immortal part of you—may grow up in a more and more enriching atmosphere.” She paused, while he watched her, motionless. “I can't imagine,” she went on, “greater happiness for two people than to see their children growing up strong and useful—tall sons and daughters to be proud of, such as all the generations before us have had. Something to hand our life on to—as it was in the beginning—you know, Stefan—” She flushed with the effort to express.