“So that will be all right. Don’t worry, dear, I’ll see to it myself.”
“No, I think you had better not,” reasoned Otto, gravely. “I—I think I had better do it. My mother, you see, Ursula, will take anything of that kind more easily from me.”
He hurt her cruelly, for it was by no means the first time she had thus been checked in the well-meant endeavor to assume her legitimate duties. She turned away in silence, and took up some needle-work.
Somehow he realized, helplessly, that things were again uncomfortable. “My dear child,” he explained, “it is only because I am anxious to shield you.”
But she stopped him.
“I don’t want to be shielded,” she said, quickly; “at least, not always.”
And she beat back her emotion, looking away, with trembling lip.
He stood, uncertain, gazing at her, and his eyes grew half-reproachful.
“Oh, of course, you don’t understand!” she exclaimed, unwillingly reading his thoughts. “You have married a plaything, Otto. You cannot comprehend my wanting to be a wife.”