Paul was still asleep when Lydia opened her eyes one morning and said to herself with a little laugh, but quite resolutely: “I come to tell ye of a world ye mortals wot not of.”
As she dressed noiselessly, she fortified herself with the thought that she had, in her nervousness, greatly overestimated the seriousness of her undertaking. There was nothing so formidable in what she meant to do, after all. She only wished to talk reasonably with her husband about how to avoid having their life degenerate into a mere campaign for material advancement. She did not use this phrase in her thoughts about the matter. She thought more deeply, and perhaps more clearly, than during her confused girlhood, but she had no learned or dignified expressions for the new ideas dawning in her. As she coiled her dark hair above her face, rather pale these days, like a white flower instead of the glowing rose it had been, she said to herself, like a child: “Now, I mustn’t get excited. I must remember that all I want is a chance for all of us, Paul and the children and me, to grow up as good as we can, and loving one another the most for the nicest things in us and not because we’re handy stepping-stones to help one another get on. And we can’t do that if we don’t really put our minds to it and make that the thing we’re trying hardest to do. The other things—the parties and making money and dressing better than we can really afford to—they’re only all right if they don’t get to seeming the things to look out for first. We must find out how to keep them second.”
A golden shaft of winter sunshine fell on Paul’s face. He opened his eyes and yawned, smiling good-naturedly at his wife. Lydia summoned her courage and fairly ran to the bed, sitting down by him and taking his strong hand in hers.
“Oh, you india-rubber ball!” he cried in humorous despair at her. “Don’t you know a woman with your expectations oughtn’t to go hurling herself around that way?”
“I know—I’m too eager always,” she apologized. “But, Paul, I’ve been waiting for a nice quiet time to have a long talk with you about something that’s troubling me, and I just decided I wouldn’t wait another minute.”
Paul patted her cheek. He was feeling very much refreshed by his night’s sleep. He smiled at his young wife again. “Why, fire away, Lydia dear. I’m no ogre. You don’t have to wait till I’m in a good temper, do you? What is it? More money?”
“Oh, no, no!” She repudiated the idea so hotly that he laughed, “Well, you can’t scare me with anything else. What’s up?”
Lydia hesitated, distracted, now that her chance had come, with the desire to speak clearly. “Paul dear, it’s very serious, and I want you to take it seriously. It may take a great effort to change things, too. I’m very unhappy about the way we are—”
A wail from Ariadne’s room gave warning that the child had wakened, as she not infrequently did, terrified by a bad dream. Lydia fled in to comfort her, and later, when she came back, leading the droll little figure in its pink sleeping-drawers, Paul was dressing with his usual careful haste. He stopped an instant to laugh at Ariadne’s face of determined woe and tossed her up until an unwilling smile broke through her pouting gloom. Then he turned to Lydia, as to another child, and rubbed his cheek on hers with a boyish gesture. “Now, you other little forlornity, what’s the matter with you?”
Lydia warmed, as always, at the tenderness of his tone, though she noticed with an inward laugh that he continued buttoning his vest as he caressed her and that his eyes wandered to the clock with a wary alertness. “Perhaps you’d better wait and tell me at the table,” he went on briskly. “I’m all ready to go down.” He pulled his coat on with his astonishing quickness, and ran downstairs.