Her Husband's Purse

by Helen Reimensnyder Martin

"Well, I should say! I'd like to have a large family, even if it is expensive!"

"So should I," said Margaret frankly; and Daniel had a moment's doubt as to the maidenly modesty of this reply, much as he approved of the sentiment.

After that evening, during the next three weeks, the course of Daniel's love ran swiftly, if not always smoothly; for his usually unreceptive soul was so deeply penetrated by the personality of this maiden whom he desired that he actually felt, intuitively, her aversion to certain phases of his mind the worthiness of which he had never before had a doubt, and he therefore curbed, somewhat, the expression of his real self, adapting his discourse, though vaguely, to the evident tastes of the woman whose favour he sought. Also, his genuine interest in her made him less obnoxiously egotistical. Indeed, all his most offensive traits were, at this time, and unfortunately for poor Margaret's fate, kept so much in abeyance, and so strongly did she, quite unconsciously, bring out the little best that was in him, that her earlier impression of him was speedily coloured over by the more gracious effect he produced as a self-effacing and worshipful lover—a lover to one who, for many years, had not been treated with even common consideration.

Had Daniel had the least idea how little Margaret was touched by the material value of the gifts he daily laid at her feet, he would certainly have saved himself some of the heavy expenditure he considered necessary for the accomplishment of his courting. If he had known that it was only the attention, the thoughtfulness, the devotion showered upon her constantly that meant so much to her whose life had hitherto been one long siege of self-sacrifice, he would surely have limited the quality, if not the quantity, of his offerings.

As Margaret came to realize that she was drifting surely, fatally, into the arms of Daniel Leitzel, her conscience forced her to try to justify her selling herself for a home.

"To marry without love? But I might have married 'Reverend Hoops' for love! And he was so much worse—less possible," she amended her reflections, "than Daniel is. It was really love that I felt for that poor, bow-legged Hoops! Yes, the sort of love that would make marriage a madness of ecstasy! Too great, indeed, for a human soul to bear! And even if one did not presently discover one's mate to be a delusion with an Adam's apple, who said 'Yes, sir,' to a negro, even if he continued to seem to you a worthy object of love, such an intoxication of happiness as I felt over my imaginary Hoops could not possibly continue, one's strength couldn't sustain it—one would end with nervous prostration!

"Hattie and Walter, when they married, were romantically in love, and now, what could be more prosaic than their jog-trot relation? So much for love." She missed that phase of the question.

But there was another aspect of a loveless marriage that had to be reckoned with.

"How would I be better than a woman of the streets? Yes I would be better, for I would bear children. But children born outside of love? Well, Reverend Hoops might have been the father of my children even after I, recovered from 'loving' him, and every one of my children might have had an Adam's apple. Better, it seems to me, to marry with eyes open and not blinded by love.' Then, at least, one would not have to suffer a dreadful flop afterward. The higher one's ideal in marriage, the more certainly does one seem doomed to bitter disillusionment. Probably the jog-trot, commonplace relation between a man and woman, recognized and accepted as such, is the only one likely to endure. Insist upon romance, and the end, I verily believe, is divorce. Daniel couldn't make me unhappy any more than he could make me happy—there's that comfort at least.

"As for a great passion of the soul, the man capable of it is certainly a rara avis and isn't likely to come my way. If I thought," said Margaret to herself, her heart beating thickly at the vision she called up from the depths in her, "that life held anywhere for me such a great spiritual passion, given and returned——" Her face turned white, she closed her eyes for an instant upon the too dazzling light of the vision. "But then," she resumed her self-justification, "if the highest ideal of marriage is unrealizable, should one compromise with a lower ideal, or avoid marriage altogether? I remember Uncle Osmond once said it was a psychological fact that a woman was happier even in a loveless marriage than in a single life. And, dear me, the race can't stop because poets have dreamed of a paradise which earth does not know!"