He never read problem novels, or went to see problem plays, and he delighted in comic opera and humorous literature. For several years his wife had been his comrade in all these things. But as she developed intellectually, and as she studied into the metaphysical thought of the world, she seemed to be bored by the things which had once given her pleasure.
It did not occur to her that she could keep in touch with the human side of life, and with her husband's tastes, and still grow out into larger ideals.
She said one could not serve God and Mammon, or obey two masters. And she felt she must obey the call of her soul. She forgot that the call of love is also the call of the soul.
So her husband began to go to the comic opera and the social dance alone or with a man friend. And he began to find it difficult to converse with his wife on any subject of mutual interest. He felt she was greatly his superior, and he was ofttimes very lonely.
He did not give vent to many spontaneous witticisms as of old, and for the first time he felt he was ageing.
His wife talked of matters, and books, and theories of life which seemed a million miles away from his sphere of thought.
As time passed she grew more and more spiritual, and she tried to make him realise that he was on a very carnal plane, and that his whole understanding of life was wrong.
She indulged in long fasts; she went into her closet for meditation, when he was alone in the house; and she refused him the expressions of love which of old had been spontaneously given. She told him love was a thing of the spirit, that it needed no physical expression. She read from books of ancient lore, and tried to make him see that only by living in the spirit, wholly, could we make a place for ourselves in the great spiritual kingdoms of the universe, or develop our highest powers here.
For two long years the man tried to live on and make the best of his position, but the wife had undertaken an impossible task. She had striven to change a wholesome, happy, good-hearted, loving human being, into an intellectual æsthetic; to turn a wit into a profound philosopher; to paralyse normal and natural instincts and appetites, and to force the man to live only in the spirit, while yet in the body.
After two years the bad husband developed. He went where he found pleasure, mirth, good food, good company. He allowed his wife to go her way; he went his.