“Harriet has become quite docile,” reflected Jacóbus; “she will make an excellent wife for my old age. I had always a gift for managing women. Look at Sarah, my first, whose character was fundamentally selfish. Love, based upon obedience, that is the secret of wedded bliss. But it would never do to let the women know it. When a woman knows a secret there’s no secret left to know.”
Mynheer Mopius spent much of his time in bed, especially the daytime. At night he would gasp for breath and have to be helped to an easy-chair, and Harriet nursed him, carefully balancing her strength.
“Two invalids are no use to any one,” she said, when stipulating for repose in an adjoining apartment.
“My first wife—” began Mopius, but Harriet stopped him.
“That subject’s tabooed,” she said. “Why, Jacóbus, it is months since you mentioned her. Your first wife died. What would you do if, at this moment, I were to die?”
“Marry again,” replied Jacóbus, coughing against his pillows, and looking exceedingly yellow and bilious and unwholesome.
“It takes two to do that,” said Harriet, coloring, as she spoke, under the reproach of her own acceptance.
“Does it?” answered Mopius, clinking his medicine-bottles.
“Jacóbus, we have never quarrelled. Don’t let us begin now. There is only one question I should like to ask you without requiring an answer. How many people did you propose to when left a widower before you got down to me?” She left the room abruptly, and in the passage she struck her white hand across her face.