"Yes, but Owen's not that sort. He's a fellow who will want his wife to be a companion, a real comrade, able to go forward side by side with him, understand his aims, sympathize with his ideals and so on; and this girl can't do it."
"But why are you so sure she can't, my boy? Probably she is very different when alone with her husband. All women, as well as men, have two soul-sides, you know—'one to face the world with'—the other——"
"Oh, that's Browning's view, of course, but then he was an idealist!" Barry spoke rather impatiently. "No, Jim, there's not much hope of that. I've made a study of the girl—I don't mind telling you I did my best to prevent Rose marrying her—and I'm perfectly certain that as far as anything beyond the merest good-fellowship goes, Rose might just as well have married a Persian kitten."
"Yet she is fond of him—in her way?"
"Very, I should say; but even then there's an element of something which shouldn't exist between husband and wife. There is a sort of quite unconscious patronage on Rose's side which matches a pretty gratitude on hers; and I have a horrible fear that if ever he found her wanting—and showed her so—she would break her heart."
"Oh! Then you don't deny her a heart?"
"Good Lord, no! What I do deny her is—well, I don't quite know. Is it brain, or soul, or what?"
"You take an interest in this girl, Barry. Is it possible you are going to try to supply this deficiency of brain, or soul, or whatever it is?"
Barry laughed rather defiantly.
"Oh, I know you think I'm a fool for my pains! Yes, that's just what I do want to do. I want to wake the girl up, to make her use her intellect, fit herself to be Owen's companion. I hate to think of their marriage turning out a failure—Owen disappointed in her, feeling aggrieved, perhaps, at her inability to go forward with him, while she in her turn feels impatient with him for expecting her to be something she isn't—and that he ought never to have expected her to be!"