“Well?”
“Why didn’t you tell me how pressed you were for money?”
He looked at her with astonishment in his face. “What?” he exclaimed, and in the exclamation he was conscious of the continuation of his old habit of deceit. He tried to atone for it in his consciousness by saying: “Well, dear, you are a wonder. What did I say this morning?”
“It wasn’t what you said. It was your being willing to consider the proposition at all. Now, of course, we must take the girls. I’ve thought it all over, and I’ve even decided which rooms to give them.”
He walked toward her and kissed her. “It will only be for one Winter, dear,” he said, assuming, in spite of the humility he felt, his usual attitude of superiority. “By that time I’ll be established in practice again and we’ll have all the money we want.”
She drew away from him, and he knew that in some subtle way he had pained her. He could not clearly divine that she felt there was something remotely wrong, almost criminal, in his assuming money could be so easily earned. But it must have been some vague sense of her feeling that prompted him to add: “I’ll have to work like the devil, dear. But it will be worth fighting for.” He sighed heavily. “And then when we get the money,” he went on whimsically, “we’ll be in a position to laugh at the people we’re afraid of now. We’ll go and live plainly in the country as soon as we can afford to pretend that we’re poor.”
She shook her head. “You wouldn’t be happy, Douglas,” she said simply, and he felt a pang. It was as if her look had penetrated his inner consciousness. “We must go on as we’ve begun.”
He knew that what she meant was wholly in unison with his own thought; but, for an instant, he felt the sinister interpretation; it was almost like a judgment on him. But he quickly recognized his injustice, and he walked over to her and placed both hands on her shoulders. “Do you love me, Helen?” he asked, looking into her eyes.
“Yes, Douglas,” she replied, and he detected the note of pain in her voice. She leaned toward him. “I love you always, Douglas, always.”
He held her closely in his arms. “My poor little wife,” he said, but he hardly knew why he should have felt pathos in the situation.