Her smile and approval gauged his happiness. That he was not equally necessary to her tortured him.
Never had she bestowed upon him the same degree of affection he had proffered her. He was satisfied and happy if he had her, but she was not equally contented; after the children came, her first thought was of them, and their happiness, and what time and affection they did not require, she gave to him. He was an unusually jealous and exacting man, and could not help feeling jealous of even his children, for he wanted to be first in her affections and interest, and the thought she should again leave him alone was simply maddening.
This second separation would be incomparably worse than the first. His love for her as a bride had not approached the degree and depth of the ardor he felt for the mother of his children. Having for so many years been deprived of her presence and love, he prized it more highly now than he could possibly have done in their early married days.
When he found no man had stepped between them in that first separation, he felt so relieved, so happy, so proud of his boy, he thought at first, he would be content with second place in her love; when little Clarissa came, she was only another object upon which to bestow his warm love, and he fervently believed her coming would cement and strengthen Clarissa's love for him, the father of her children.
His hopes had been rewarded in her early sickness, furnishing him a degree of happiness he had never before known; to be thus positively assured his presence was necessary to their happiness, and then, without warning, when he was planning to do his boy the greatest good possible to perform for him, she turned upon him like a tigress, banishing him from her presence, threatening to take her children and leave him again.
The first desolation had been bad enough, but the second would be infinitely worse. Had he been selfish, cross, jealous or exacting, he could have endured this new and unexpected banishment better, but so far as he knew how, he had striven to make his family happy, consulting, in every instance, their pleasure before his own.
Since she had returned to him, Clarissa herself had been the dictator; he had faithfully kept his promise she should reign and not he, only intruding upon her presence and life when she gave him permission. They had both, he knew, been happier in their reunion than in their first union, or marriage.
Clarissa had proven her love to him many ways. He could not doubt her loyalty to him, and that was what puzzled him. He had not the smallest shadow of a doubt she loved him only, considering other men as his opponents but why—why did she threaten to leave him, when he spoke of trying to heal Augustus?
He repeated over and over to himself that he would not be jealous of his own children, knowing he had no occasion to be jealous of anyone else. He was sorry he had spoken so harshly to her. She was ill and nervous and knew very little about mesmeric influence.
Truly, he had no real distinct memory of what he had said. When she was a little stronger, he would go to her and ask her pardon and assistance to help Augustus, that he, an innocent victim, should not pay his father's debt of jealousy and injustice. As William thought this out, he did not realize what a growth in real true love it proclaimed.