“Oh, I know what you are going to say. I made my bed, and I ought to be willing to lie in it. I knew you were a poor man when I married you. Well, suppose I did. I didn’t mind poverty then—the enthusiasm of youth made it all seem a pleasure, like camping out, and living on canned beans and corn bread. It’s fine, for a time, but after a while, when the novelty has worn off, you get sort of tired of it. There comes a time in every married woman’s life when she sits down and looks at things from both sides, and wonders whether, after all, it’s really worth while.”
“I don’t see why you should complain, if I don’t,” said Donald wearily. “I’m sorry we haven’t more money, on your account and on my own, as well. There are many things I should like to do.”
“Oh, you’re a man.” Edith flung herself across the room and began turning over the sheets of music upon the piano. “If you have a couple of new suits of clothes a year and can smoke the kind of cigars you like, you don’t bother your head if some other man has a dozen suits and keeps a valet. It’s different with a woman. Home-made dresses, dollar corsets, riding in surface cars, seem mighty hard, when you see other women in their autos, their Russian sables, their Paris gowns—women who spend more money on their dogs every month than I have to spend on Bobbie. It’s a thousand times harder for a woman to be poor than it is for a man. Most men don’t know it, but that doesn’t alter the fact—it’s true, just the same.”
She suddenly sat down at the piano, and after striking a few discords, began to play the “Jewel Song” from “Faust” in a rapid tempo.
Donald followed her with his eyes. “It seems to me,” he said gravely, “that when a man wants to do so much for his wife and realizes that he can’t it’s the hardest of all—much harder than doing without things yourself.”
Edith did not speak for several moments.
“I don’t wonder Marguerite was tempted by the jewels, and all that,” she remarked, presently, then concluded her playing with a series of crashing chords, and rose from her seat with a harsh laugh.
“Edith, I wish you wouldn’t say such things.”
“Why shouldn’t I? Perhaps they are true. How do you know that I am not being tempted, too? I suppose, if the devil were to come along and offer me a million or two, I’d run away with him without stopping to pack my trunk.” She resumed her chair, and picked up her sewing again. “Go on with your writing, Donald. I’m sorry this discussion came up. It hasn’t done a bit of good. I suppose you think me heartless and unkind. I can’t help it. I’m not the first woman who has found married life a harder road than she had anticipated.”
She bent over her sewing with a sense of anger and annoyance with herself for having entered into such a purposeless discussion. Donald sat down at his desk and again took up his work. Only the ticking of the clock and the scratching of his pen broke the heavy silence. Life had once more resumed its monotonous procession.