"Well, Emma?" he said again, gently.
Emma looked at him a moment appreciatively. She had too much poise and balance and control herself not to recognize and admire those qualities in others.
"T. A., if I had been what they call a homebody, we wouldn't be married to-day, would we?"
"No."
"You knew plenty of home-women that you could have married, didn't you?"
"I didn't ask them, Emma, but——"
"You know what I mean. Now listen, T. A.: I've loafed for three months. I've lolled and lazied and languished. And I've never been so tired in my life—not even when we were taking January inventory. Another month of this, and I'd be an old, old woman. I understand, now, what it is that brings that hard, tired, stony look into the faces of the idle women. They have to work so hard to try to keep happy. I suppose if I had been a homebody all my life, I might be hardened to this kind of thing. But it's too late now. And I'm thankful for it. Those women who want to shop and dress and drive and play are welcome to my share of it. If I am to be punished in the next world for my wickedness in this, I know what form my torture will take. I shall have to go from shop to shop with a piece of lace in my hand, matching a sample of insertion. Fifteen years of being in the thick of it spoil one for tatting and tea. The world is full of homebodies, I suppose. And they're happy. I suppose I might have been one, too, if I hadn't been obliged to get out and hustle. But it's too late to learn now. Besides, I don't want to. If I do try, I'll be destroying the very thing that attracted you to me in the first place. Remember what you said about the Fifth Avenue girl?"
"But, Emma," interrupted Buck very quietly, "I don't want you to try."
Emma, with a rush of words at her very lips, paused, eyed him for a doubtful moment, asked a faltering question.
"But it was your plan—you said you wanted me to be here when you came home and when you left, didn't you? Do you mean you——"