Oh, Tabby, think of all the fusses people keep out of who promptly settle down at the appointed time and become peaceful old maids. How sensible we were, Tabby, you and Missis.
But doesn’t it seem to you that people marry from very mixed motives? I used to have an idea—when I was painfully young, of course—that they married because they were so fortunate as to fall in love with each other. Are you quite sure that foolish notion is out of your head too?
VI
THE LONELY CHILDHOOD OF A CLEVER CHILD
“Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?... To be great is to be misunderstood.”
I have been away since early last summer, and consequently never had seen Flossy’s new baby until the newness had worn off, and it had arrived at the dignity of a backbone, and had left its wobbly period far behind. I am in mortal terror of a very little baby. It feels so much like a sponge, yet lacks the sponge’s recuperative qualities. I am always afraid if I dent it the dents will stay in. You know they don’t in a sponge.
As soon as I came home, of course I went to see Flossy’s baby, and was very much disconcerted to discover that she had named it for me. I was afraid, I remember, that she would want to name the first girl for me, but she did not. She named her after Rachel. I had an uncomfortable idea, however, that my name had been discussed and vetoed, by either Flossy or Bronson. But this time the baby is named Ruth, and I found that it was all Flossy’s doing.
I was irritated without knowing why. I didn’t want anybody to know it though, and so I was vexed when Bronson said to me, “I couldn’t help it, Ruth.” There was no use in pretending not to understand. I could with some men, but not with Bronson. He is too magnificently honest himself, and uplifts me by expecting me to be equally so. Nevertheless I failed him in one particular, for I answered him in my loftiest manner, “I am not at all displeased. It is a great compliment, I am sure.”
There is nothing so uncivil at times as to be cuttingly polite. What I said wasn’t so at all. But a woman is obliged to defend herself from a man who reads her like an open book.