"Lord! Lord! Little Desire!" I muttered.
"She is a woman of thirty, Benjamin."
"What does she say?" I exploded. "What is wrong in her married life? People don't do these things causelessly--not the people we are or know."
"She says a great deal," returned her mother dryly. "Did you ever know a Withacre to be lacking in words, Benjamin? Desire is very fluent. I might say she is eloquent."
{69}
"But what does it all amount to, anyhow?" I demanded impatiently. Dazed though I was, my consciousness of being the head of the family was returning.
Lucretia lifted her left hand, which was trembling, and checked off the items on her fingers. Her hands were shapely, though dark and shrunken, with swollen veins across the back. The firelight struck the worn gold of her wedding ring.
"She demands a less hampered life; a more variegated self-expression; a chance to help the world in her own way; an existence that shall be a daily development; the opportunity to give perpetual stimulus and refreshment to an utterly congenial mate. Oh! I know her reasons by heart," said Lucretia. "They sound like fine things, don't they, Benjamin?"
{70}
"Who is the other man?"