Randolph laughed so heartily that Lee was forced to smile. “If that were all,” she said with a sigh.
“I can think of no better temporary remedy than that you should come back to California with us for a year. You might find that England had weaned you after all, and California was an idealised memory. And as for your husband—there is nothing like an occasional vacation. Mother is already homesick: we’ll return this year.”
“Cecil would never consent. He’s really devoted to me.”
“I should hope so. But English wives are not slaves, I suppose. If you asserted yourself he would neither tie you up nor divorce you.”
“He really needs me tremendously. If I were not a little beast I’d be contented with my lot. And as I’ve tried to make him happy for purely selfish reasons for three years, I don’t see that I have the right to make him miserable because I have wheeled about and want something that he can’t give me.”
“Or awakened?”
“It’s not only that. I shut my eyes deliberately to a great deal at the first—that I could not be everything to him, that there were depths in his nature that were way beyond me.”
“My dear child, no woman can be everything to a man; that would be Utopia.”
“He could at least be more to me.”
“Ah, that is another matter,” said Randolph softly.