Her passion for the child grew with Ariadne’s growth, and there were times when she was tempted to agree in the unspoken axiom of those about her, that all she needed was enough children to fill her heart and hands too full for thought; but sometimes at night, when Paul was away and she had the little crib moved close to her bed, very different ideas came to her in the silent hours when she lay listening to the child’s quick, regular breathing. At such times, when her mind grew very clear in the long pause between the hurry of one day and the next, she had rather a sort of horror in bringing any more lives into a world which she could do so little to make ready for them. Ariadne was here, and, oh! She must do something to make it better for her! Her desire that Ariadne should find it easier than she to know how to live well, rose to a fervor that was a prayer emanating from all her being. Perhaps she was not clever or strong enough to know how to make her own life and Paul’s anything but a dreary struggle to get ahead of other people, but somehow—somehow, Ariadne must have a better chance.
Something of all this came to her mind in the reaction from her frolic, as she established the child in her high-chair and sat down to her own cold breakfast; but she soon fell, instead, to pondering the question of Mary in the kitchen. She had not now that terror of a violent scene which had embittered the first year of her housekeeping, but she felt a qualm of revulsion from the dirty negress who, as she entered the kitchen, turned to face her with insolent eyes. It seemed a plague-spot in her life that in the center of her home, otherwise so carefully guarded, there should be this presence, come from she shuddered to think what evil haunts of that part of Endbury known as the “Black Hole.” She thought, as so many women have thought, that there must be something wrong in a system that made her husband spend all his strength laboring to make money so much of which was paid, in one form or another, to this black incubus. She thought, as so many other women have thought, that there must be something wrong with a system of life that meant that, with rare exceptions, such help was all that could be coaxed into doing housework; but Lydia, unlike the other women she knew, did not—could not—stop at the realization that something was wrong. Some irresistible impulse moved her to try at least to set it right.
On this occasion, however, as she faced the concrete result of the system, she was too languid, and felt too acutely the need for sparing her strength, to do more than tell her cook briefly that if she did not stop drinking she would be dismissed. Mary made no reply, looking down at her torn apron, her face heavy and sullen. She prepared some sort of luncheon, however, and by night had recovered enough so that with Lydia’s help the dinner was eatable.
Paul was late to dinner, and when he sat down heavily at the table Lydia’s heart failed her at the sight of his face, fairly haggard with fatigue. She kept Ariadne quiet, the child having already learned that when Daddy came home from the city there must be no more noisy play; and she served Paul with a quickness that outstripped words. She longed unspeakably to put on one side forever all her vexing questions and simply to cherish and care for her husband physically. He had so much to burden him already—all he could carry. But she had been so long bringing herself to the point of resolution in the matter, she had so firmly convinced herself that her duty lay along that dark and obscure path, that she clung to her purpose.
After dinner, when she came downstairs from putting Ariadne to bed, she found him already bent over the writing-table, covering a sheet of paper with figures. “You remember, Paul, I have something to talk over with you,” she began, her mouth twitching in a nervous smile.
He pushed the papers aside, and looked up at her with a weary tenderness. “Oh, yes; I do remember. We might as well have it over now, I suppose. Wait a minute, though.” He went to the couch, piled the pillows at one end, and lay down, his hands clasped under his head. “I might as well rest myself while we talk, mightn’t I?”
“Oh, yes, yes, poor dear!” cried Lydia remorsefully. “I wish I didn’t have to bother you!”
“I wish so, too,” he said whimsically. “Sure it’s nothing you can’t settle yourself?” He closed his eyes and yawned.
“I don’t want to settle it myself!” cried Lydia with a rush, seeing an opening ready-made. “That’s the point. I want you to be in it! I want you to help me! Paul, I’m sure there’s something the matter with the way we live—I don’t like it! I don’t see that it helps us a bit—or anyone else—you’re just killing yourself to make money that goes to get us things we don’t need nearly as much as we need more of each other! We’re not getting a bit nearer to each other—actually further away, for we’re both getting different from what we were without the other’s knowing how! And we’re not getting nicer—and what’s the use of living if we don’t do that? We’re just getting more and more set on scrambling along ahead of other people. And we’re not even having a good time out of it! And here is Ariadne—and another one coming—and we’ve nothing to give them but just this—this—this—”
She had poured out her accumulated, pent-up convictions with passion, feeling an immense relief that she had at last expressed herself—that at last she had made a breach in the wall that separated her from Paul. At the end, as she hesitated for a phrase to sum up her indictment of their life, her eyes fell on Paul’s face. Its expression turned her cold. She stopped short. He did not open his eyes, and the ensuing silence was filled with his regular, heavy breathing. He had fallen asleep.