"How can you be essential? She has crowds of friends, and a husband who adores her."
"A husband of fifty years of age, grave, silent, with his mind concentrated upon international finance; a man who is thinking of another Turkish loan while he sits opposite her, with his stony eyes fixed upon space—a man whose brain is a calculating machine and his heart a handful of ashes."
"Has she complained of him?"
"Never; but things have leaked out. She was not eighteen—little more than a child—when she married him. She gave herself to him in a romantic impulse, admiring his force of character, her heart touched by his affection for a dying daughter. To be so loved by that strong nature seemed to her enough for happiness. But that was six years ago, and she has lived six years in the world. The romance has gone out of her love. What can she have in common with such a man?"
"The bond of marriage—his love, and her sense of duty," answered the priest.
"She has a keen sense of a wife's duty: she preaches sermons upon her husband's goodness of heart, his fine character; and she ends with a sigh, and regrets that for some mysterious reason she has not been able to make him happy."
"She is too rich and too much indulged, and she is without a saving creed. Poor child, I would give much to save her from herself and from you."
"Don't be afraid of me, Father. Men of my stamp may be trusted. We are too feather-brained to be intense, even in sin. Good night. I hear the jingle of glass and silver, and I think it must be near your dinner-time. Good night!"
The priest gave him his hand, but not his blessing. That was withheld for a better moment.