“What a lot you have given up!” said Wilfred; “. . . for this!” He looked around the family dining-room.
“This room is plenty good enough as long as the children overrun it,” said Frances Mary, a little up in arms.
“I spoke metaphorically, my angel,” said Wilfred, smiling.
“What! Do you think I would change back with that envious old maid?” said Fanny with a whole smile; “me, a woman married to her man! . . . After I have borne three children!”
“Too many,” he said gloomily.
She laughed. “Sure! My fault! . . . It won’t hurt me not to write for awhile. My book is lying at the bottom of my heart, soaking.”
“It will be far better than anything of mine,” he said. “My work has no time to lie in soak.”
“Don’t be so silly, or you’ll make me cry. . . . If a book should come of it, it would be entirely due to you, wouldn’t it? You got our children, and kept me while I bore them. That’s better than writing three books. . . . Oh, Wilfred!” she cried in a sudden rapture, “the children! Their little shells they got from us, but their souls are their own! I shall never become accustomed to it!”
An obliterating fire blazed up in Wilfred’s eyes. From across the table, sly and shining, they sought her eyes compellingly.
She quickly hid her eyes. The corners of her mouth were obstinately turned up “Certainly not!” she said in wifely tones. “After what you just told me! . . . One of us has got to show some sense!”