She paused a moment during which she thought, "I certainly have a right to say this—and it ought to be said. I am not complaining. We ought to plan out our life together." Aloud she continued, "That has always seemed to me the right way. I think so much depends now upon our starting right."
He rose hastily. "We will talk that over some other time. I really have to go down to-night. I have promised to meet a man. You don't object? You will not be afraid?"
"I shall not be afraid," she said.
She went to the door with him and stood looking after him until he disappeared. When she came back she was shivering a little. She sat before the fire and looked into its depths. Then she raised the skirt of her dainty house-gown and rested her slippered feet on the brass that was burnished until it shone.
"Two feet on a fender," she said with a dreary little smile.
She reasoned with herself afterwards. "It may not be the best way to do—to live—" she told herself, "but I hope I am womanly enough not to be jealous of my husband's business."
Some months later Mrs. Kirtley remarked to her husband, "Victor De Jarnette must be doing very well in his business. Margaret tells me that he has to go to the office almost every night of late, there is such a rush of work. Poor child! She is not well, and is nervous at being alone, though she is very brave about it. I think he should be at home more just now—a man of his means—even if he has to sacrifice his business somewhat. I hope he will not become too mercenary."
"I hardly think he will," the Judge responded, dryly. But with the loyalty of one man for another, even when that other is unworthy, he said no more. Inwardly he was groaning, "Just as I feared. Too bad! That young man had a good case and he is letting it go by default. Margaret is not the woman to stand this when she finds out."
It is an evil hour for a man when a woman takes to her hungry heart a substitute for the affection he withholds, but when the thing substituted is an innocent thing it is a godsend to the woman. A plant if denied the light on one side will turn this way and that. When it cannot get it in any direction it dies.