"I am really," he said, "trying to save them from themselves. I am only pleading for the harmless and the necessary laity."
Ellen did not answer him for a long while.
"You see, Ned, I am hardly more to you now than any other woman. You come here occasionally to spend a day or two with me. Our married life has dwindled down to that. You play with the baby and you play with the piano, and you write your letters. I don't know what you are writing in them. You never speak to me of your ideas now. I know nothing of your politics."
"I haven't spoken about politics much lately, Ellen, because I thought you had lost interest in them."
"I have lost interest in nothing that concerns you. I have not spoken to you about politics because I know quite well that my ideas don't interest you any longer. You're absorbed in your own ideas, and we're divided. You sleep now in the spare room, so that you may have time to prepare your speeches."
"But I sometimes come to see you in your room, Ellen."
"Sometimes," she said, sadly, "but that is not my idea of marriage, nor is it the custom of the country, nor is it what the Church wishes."
"I think, Ellen, you are very unreasonable, and you are generally so reasonable."
"Well, don't let us argue any more," she said. "We shall never agree, I'm afraid."
Ned remembered that he once used to say to her, "Ellen, we are agreed in everything."