“I don’t know whether it is or not.” Mrs. Rogers’ tone was not encouraging. “Five years is a long time. I’m not sure but I’d rather have a little bit more human pleasure and enjoyment as I go along. For years—ever since Bobbie was born—I’ve had to spend the summer here in this wretched, hot place. It hasn’t done me any good. It hasn’t done him any good. I’d rather you would put a little less into the glass business and a little more into your wife’s and child’s health and happiness.”
Mr. Rogers stopped in his pacing up and down the room. It was clear that his wife’s remarks had touched a sensitive spot.
“Edith,” he exclaimed, “you cannot mean what you say. Everything I have done has been for you and for him. Bobbie seems to me to be well enough. Think of the hundreds of thousands of children that have to spend the summer in the city. God knows I’d give my life for him, or for you, too, if you needed it; it’s what I am doing. I can’t do any more.”
“I know it,” said Edith, with a sigh. “I suppose I’m very unreasonable, but somehow my life has seemed so empty, all these years.”
“Haven’t you everything you need?”
“Everything I need? Do you think three meals a day and a place to sleep is everything a woman needs?”
“Many women have less.”
“And many have more. A woman’s needs depend upon her desires, her temperament. What may be a necessity to one, another would have no use for. Some women, down in Tenth Avenue, might think this Paradise.” She looked about the room scornfully. “And a lot more, up in Fifth Avenue, would think it—well—the other place. That’s the difference.”
Donald looked at her curiously, and noted her flushed face, her heaving breast. These things evidently were very near her heart. “What are your needs, Edith?” he asked kindly.
“How can you ask me such a question?” Edith failed to appreciate his kind intention. She was fairly launched upon her argument, and the tumult of discontent which had been gathering in her breast burst forth with bitter intensity. “Did you ever suppose for a moment that I was a woman who could be satisfied with the merest commonplaces of existence? Don’t you see that I need life—real, broadening, joyous, human life, with all its hopes, its fears, its longings, its successes, its failures? Do you think I find those things here?” She swept the room with an all-embracing gesture, and stood confronting him with flushed cheeks, her eyes flashing rebelliously.