“It’s my pride,” she said suddenly and very quickly. “He hurts it so!”
“But how? Merely because he does things in his own way? He probably knows best—they all say he’s very clever in politics.”
“Clever! I should think so! He’s a great, rough, good-natured, ill-mannered—no, he’s not a brute. He’s painfully kind. But with that exterior—there’s no other word. He has the quickness of a woman in some ways. I believe he can be anything he chooses.”
“But all you say is rather in his favour.”
“I know it is. I wish it were not. If I loved him—the mere idea is ridiculous! But if I did, I would trot by his side and carry the basket through life, like his poodle. But I don’t love him—and he expects me to do it all the same. I’m curled, and scented, and fed delicately, and put to sleep on a silk cushion, and have a beautiful new ribbon tied round my neck every morning, just like a poodle-dog—and I must trot quietly and carry the basket. That’s all I am in his life—it wasn’t exactly my dream,” she added bitterly.
“I see. And you thought that it was to be the other way, and that he was to trot beside you.”
“You put it honestly, at all events. Yes. I suppose I thought that. I did not expect this, anyhow—and I simply can’t bear it any longer! So long as there’s any question of social matters, of course, everything is left to me. He can’t leave a card himself, he won’t make visits—he won’t lift a finger, though he wants it all properly and perfectly done. Lottie must trot—with the card-basket. But if I venture to have an opinion about anything, I have no more influence over him than the furniture. I mustn’t say this, because it will be repeated that his wife said it; and I mustn’t say that, because those are not his political opinions; and I mustn’t say something else, because it might get back to Nevada and offend his constituents—and as for doing anything, it’s simply out of the question. When I’m bored to death with it all, he tells me that his constituents expect him to stay in Washington during the session, and he advises me to go away for a few days, and offers to draw me a cheque. He would probably give me a thousand dollars for my expenses if I wanted to stay a week with you. I don’t know whether he wants to seem magnificent, or whether he thinks I expect it, or if he really imagines that I should spend it. But it isn’t that I want, Kitty—it isn’t that! I didn’t marry for money, though it was very nice to have so much—it wasn’t for that, it really, really wasn’t! I suppose it’s absurd—perfectly wild—but I wanted to be somebody, to have some influence in the world, to have just a little of what people call real power. And I haven’t got it, and I can’t have it; and I’m nothing but his poodle-dog, and I’m perfectly miserable!”
Katharine could find nothing to say when her sister paused after her long speech. It was not easy for her to sympathize with any one so totally unlike herself, nor to understand the state of mind of a woman who wanted the sort of power which few women covet, who had practically given her life in exchange for the hope of it, and who had pitiably failed to obtain it. She stared out of the window at the falling rain, and it all seemed very dreary to her.
“It’s my pride!” exclaimed Charlotte, suddenly, after a pause. “I never knew what it meant before—and you never can. It’s intolerable to feel that I’m beaten at the very beginning of life. Can’t you understand that, at least?”
“Yes—but, Charlie dear,—it’s a long way from a bit of wounded pride to a divorce—isn’t it?”