“No,” Babbie said, “you don’t understand what it is. Ah! I did not mean to hurt you.”
“If I don’t know what it is, what is it?” he asked, almost humbly. “I scarcely know you now.”
“That is it,” said Babbie.
She gave him back his ring, and then he broke down pitifully. Doubtless there was good in him, but I saw him only once; and with nothing to contrast against it, I may not now attempt to breathe life into the dust of his senile passion. These were the last words that passed between him and Babbie:
“There was nothing,” he said wistfully, “in this wide world that you could not have had by asking me for it. Was not that love?”
“No,” she answered. “What right have I to everything I cry for?”
“You should never have had a care had you married me. That is love.”
“It is not. I want to share my husband’s cares, as I expect him to share mine.”
“I would have humored you in everything.”
“You always did: as if a woman’s mind were for laughing at, like a baby’s passions.”