"A mother's love is different from a husband's."
"So I have found them. Since Augustus was first placed in my arms, I have known but one thought, one desire;—that was to please him. It is for him I always sing; never for the public. I always feel he will be proud to think, in after life, his mother was a gifted and talented woman."
"Are you not a little selfish yourself, when you have left me sad and lonely all these years since you have had our boy?"
As he said this, there resounded a peal of boyish laughter, ringing clear and distinct. William hesitated, then resumed: "I make no pretentions to goodness, but there are a few facts I have a right to state. When you left my home, every ray of brightness faded out of my life. I doubted everybody and everything;—I was proud—too proud to want anyone's pity or sympathy, so I sought to hide my suffering beneath a mask of indifference and coldness. What I suffered, no one but myself will ever know. It has made an old man out of a young one;—it has so completely crushed my pride I am willing now to sue for a second place in your affections, when the first is filled by my son. It is impossible for me to go back to my lonely home and endure what I have. If I have been cruel, harsh and unjust to you whom I love better than my life, I ask to be forgiven, and promise that, coming to me again, you shall be the guiding influence of our home. Give me one chance to show the depth and earnestness of my love. Few men have given women the fidelity I have shown you. That ought to be a factor in my favor."
"William, I believe you have been true to me. I have heard you called a woman-hater everywhere, but why have you been? You have not seen another woman who happened to please you as I did. It was no sacrifice upon your part, as you were not strongly attracted to them. I believe I am just and honest with you when I say the feeling you held for me, and which you called love, was only a physical attraction, and that was the cause of your suffering so from jealousy. Do not interrupt me—I know that you do not believe it, but I do, and with good reason."
"I must have been a most cruel husband indeed."
"No, William, I know you have not meant to be, and I am willing to acknowledge I, too, have made many mistakes; we have both been at fault, but you might at least have come and asked me to stay in your home, when you knew my delicate condition."
"Clarissa! As there is a good Judge in the Infinite, I did not know it."
"You did know it, for I told you so myself, during that last quarrel."