"Poor little sweetheart! My own dear wife," he said, "I am sorry for you, so sorry I cannot express it. But why shouldn't such a year as you picture be ours when you are strong and well once more? This first year of our marriage shall be an indoor year. You shall be Marguerite-sit-by-the-fire, knitting and making fine embroidery, and later on you shall be my Marguerite of the fresh air, of the sun and the wind, and we will still have our wonderful year."
I shook my head.
"It could never be the same," I replied. "I may sound sentimental, Dimbie, but I am a woman and know. Men are very ignorant about love, only women know. Men imagine that romance will last beyond the first year as well as love, but women know better. Besides, men don't care about its lasting, it tires them, bores them; but women care, oh, so much. They can't help it, they are born that way. Men are tremendously keen on gaining the object of their affection, and when they have got it they regard it calmly, affectionately, unemotionally. It is a possession: they are glad for it to be there, and almost annoyed when it is absent—not exactly because they miss the possession's companionship, but it has no right to be anywhere but at its own fireside. Men go to golf, tennis, race meetings, fishing on their Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. They are quite surprised at the possession being a little sorry and hurt at first at their not wanting to go about with her as they did in that first wonderful year. The possession is unreasonable, exacting; she wants to tie her husband to her apron strings. She has no right to be lonely—there are the children, and if there are no children she must make interests of her own; or—she might even take to golf so long as she isn't extravagant and ambitious, and expect to play with Haskells or her own husband.
"All these are platitudes, you will say; but there never were truer platitudes. Ah, if husbands would only realise and accept the fact that woman is the other half of man, but diverse, how much happiness there would be. Diverse! He loved her for her feminine attributes before marriage—for her weaknesses if you like to call them such. Why doesn't he after? A true, good woman doesn't want a great deal. A gentle word, a caress, a look of love and understanding from the man she loves are far more to her than coronets. A woman likes to be wanted, and I don't think it is vanity. Watch her smile if her husband marks her out of a large crowd for a little attention. The other women there may be young and beautiful; she is little and old and faded, and wears a shabby gown—but her husband wants her. Women are never happier than when they are wanted. And how quick they are, how instantly they divine when an act of courtesy is performed for them from duty only and not from affection. I once heard a man curse when his wife asked him to hold her umbrella on a wet night when she was struggling with the train of her gown and her slippers. They were dining out, and couldn't afford cabs. She was frail, and he was big and strong. She just caught at her breath. Through the years she had learnt wisdom, a greater wisdom than Solomon could ever teach. She realised that this man would stand by her in a tight place, and with that she must be content. It was unreasonable of her to hanker after the little words of love and kindness which make life so sweet. He was faithful to her, he didn't drink or gamble or go to clubs. He gave her £25 a year for her clothes, and he 'kept' her. What more could she possibly want? And if he swore at her, and told her she looked old, and why couldn't she dress like other women, it was only his little way, and didn't mean anything."
I paused.
"And so, and so that is why I am grieved at the loss of our first year."
Dimbie sat in silence for a moment, and when he moved and gently placed my head on the pillow I was startled by the expression of his face.
"You speak from your experience of the manner in which your father has treated your mother," he said at length slowly, "and that is a little hard on other men. Do you think I shall ever cease to want you, Marguerite?"
"I don't know," I replied.
"Yes, you do." His voice was stern.