“I don’t know. I’ve been told that his wife is not in sympathy with him; that she doesn’t understand him and doesn’t appreciate him. If that is so it’s a pitiful situation.”
“If it is so, it is certainly unfortunate, but I do not quite credit that story.”
Mrs. Bradley went on as though she had not heard.
“A man such as he is ought to have a wife of the same mind with him. She ought to be one with him in everything. She ought to give herself up completely to him and to his work. And she would have a rich reward, because I believe such a man as he is could love intensely.”
She had been looking away into some glowing distance as she spoke, but now she turned her eyes full upon her hostess.
“I have known of marriages like that,” she said, “and they have been perfect; perfect, such as your marriage to Mr. Westgate never could have been; such as your marriage, some day, to some other man must be, for you deserve it, and you must have it. A woman who loses an experience like that loses the better part of her life.”
She spoke with such intense earnestness that her listener was startled, and hardly knew how to reply. There was a moment’s pause and then Ruth said, feeling even while she said it that she was saying the wrong thing:
“I suppose your own experience as a wife leads you to say that, Mrs. Bradley.”
“My own experience? Oh, no! My own marriage was a very commonplace affair. People who are as poor as we were, always hard at work, straining to make both ends meet, have little time for love-making. Besides, my husband was not a man for any woman to idolize.”
If Ruth was surprised at this frank avowal, she succeeded in concealing her surprise. It occurred to her that possibly the woman was primitive, and that her finer sensibilities had not yet been fully developed. But that she was genuine and well-intentioned there could be no doubt.