He was distinctly annoyed that her father had permitted her to post the forge book; it was an exceedingly unladylike proceeding. He told her something of this in carefully chosen, deliberate words; and she listened quietly, but with a faint air of disappointment.
“I want you to buy yourself whatever you fancy,” he continued; “nothing is too good for you—for my wife. I am very proud of you and insist on your making the best appearance, wherever we are. Next year, if the political weather clears at all, we'll go to Paris, and you can explore the mantua-makers there. You got the shawls in your dressing room?”
She hesitated, cutting uncertainly with a heavy silver knife at a crystallized citron.
Then, with an expression of determination, she addressed him again:
“But don't you see that it is your power, your success over men, that fascinates me; that first made me think of you? In a way this is not—not an ordinary affair of ours; I had other chances more commonplace, which my father encouraged, but they seemed so stupid that I couldn't entertain them. I love pretty clothes, Alexander; I adore the things you've given me; but will you mind my saying that that isn't what I married you for? I am sure you don't care for such details, for money itself, in the least. You are too strong. And that is why I did marry you, why I love to think about you, and what I want to follow, to admire and understand.”
He was conscious of only a slight irritation at this masculine-sounding speech; he must have no hesitation in uprooting such ideas from his wife's thoughts; they detracted from her feminine charm, struck at the bottom of her duties, her privileges and place.
“At the next furnace in blast,” he told her with admirable control, “the workmen will insist on your throwing in, as my bride, a slipper; and in that way you can help the charge.”
Then, by planning an immediate trip with her to West Virginia, he abruptly brought the discussion to a close.
Alexander was pleased, during the weeks which followed, at the fact that she made no further reference to iron. She went about the house, gravely busy with its maintenance, as direct and efficient as he was in the larger realm. Almost her first act was to discharge the housekeeper. The woman came to Alexander, her fat face smeared with crying, and protested bitterly against the loss of a place she had filled since the house was roofed.
He was, of course, curt with her, and ratified Gisela's decision; but privately he was annoyed. He had not even intended his wife to discharge the practical duties of living—thinking of her as a suave figure languidly moving from parlor to dining room or boudoir; however, meeting her in a hall, energetically directing the dusting of a cornice, in a rare flash of perception he said nothing.