It was very slow, unexciting work sitting in a twelve-foot-square office all day, waiting for clients who never came.
He had the feelings of an exile, too, whenever [p 77] ]he thought of the dear little cottage where the days had all been short and bright. It seemed as if Dot had banished him from the little kingdom because she was tired of him, and it was real torture to him to notice how light-hearted and happy she seemed without him, while he was more miserable than he had ever been in his life.
Dot could persuade herself both into and out of anything she wished with happy feminine ease. But with Larrie it was different. He was long-headed and his reasoning was nearly always excellent, but when he had once planted an idea in that head of his, it almost required an earthquake to uproot it. That was what Dot stigmatised his ‘aggravating obstinacy.’
He had upbraided her more than once for having what he called ‘moods,’ not being always the same to him, having the odd little fits of coldness or petulance that most women have occasionally, and can never explain logically and satisfactorily. But Dot used to retort that if she was subject to moods, he [p 78] ]had ‘tenses’ which were infinitely more objectionable.
A matter that she would shed a few tears over and then dismiss, he would brood over until he worked himself up into a state of positive wretchedness.
He really could not help himself, it was a certain kink in his nature that made him so, and the ‘tenses’ were times of misery both to himself and Dot.
Once in the early days of the baby, he had taken up the notion that Dot cared for it far more than she did for him, she was so wrapped up in it, and would spare him so little time from it.
He had grown absolutely jealous of the poor innocent little morsel, and so miserably unhappy, that it had needed a domestic cyclone and manifest neglect of the child before Dot could bring him to a healthy state of mind again.
He loved his little sweet wife with a passionate fervour and devotedness, that only one man in a thousand is capable of.
[p 79]
]She was as necessary to him as the breath to his lungs, the blood to his heart. Had it been needful, he would have fought the whole world single-handed for her sake and never felt one of the scars.