I sat smoking my cigar and watching her face. It was a wonderfully young face. Not that she was so old; on the contrary, she was still young in years. I call her face wonderfully young because it had that look of inexhaustible, eternal youth which is rare even in the faces of boys and girls. But that evening I was not thinking so much of her youth and her beauty as of a certain expression of hardness, of evil passions rampant—envy and hatred and jealousy, savage disappointment over defeats in sordid battles.
“Edna,” said I, hesitatingly, “why don’t you drop all that? Can’t you see there’s nothing in it? You’re tempting the worst things in your nature to grow and destroy all that’s good and sweet—all that makes you—and me—happy. People aren’t necessary to us. And if you must have friends, surely all the attractive people in New York aren’t in that little fashionable set. Judging from what I’ve seen of them, they’re a lot of bores.”
“They look bored here,” retorted she. “And no wonder! They come as a Christian duty.”
I laughed. “Now, honestly, are those fashionable people the best educated, the best in any way—any real way? I’ve talked with the men, and the younger ones—the ones that go in for society—are unspeakable rotters. I wouldn’t have them about.”
Edna’s eyes flashed, and her form quivered in a gust of hysterical fury—the breaking of long-pent passion, of anger and despair, taking me as an excuse for vent. “Oh, it’s terrible to be married to a man who always misunderstands!—one who can’t sympathize!” cried she. It was a remark she often made, but never before had she put so much energy, so much bitterness into it.
“What do I misunderstand?” I asked, more hurt than I cared to show. “Where don’t I sympathize?”
“Let’s not talk about it!” exclaimed she. “If I weren’t a remarkable woman I’d have given up long ago—I’d give up now.”
Before you smile at her egotism, gentle reader, please remember that husband and wife were talking alone; also that with a few pitiful exceptions all human beings think surpassingly well of themselves, and do not hesitate to express that good opinion privately. I guess there’s more lying done about lack of egotism and of vanity generally than about all other matters put together.
Said I: “You are indeed a wonder, dear. In this country one sees many astonishing transformations. But I doubt if there have been many equal to the transformation of the girl I married into the girl who’s sitting before me.”
“And what good has it done me?” demanded she. “How I’ve worked away at myself—inside and out—and all for nothing!”