“Don’t be so primitive, Dick. I don’t think any such rotten thing. If you will chain your spirited desires to do murder for a moment I’ll finish what I was about to say—what you urged me to say after having dragged me into this conversation. I think that Cecily is so attuned to delicacy and to fine things—so in love with her love of you—that any suggestion of coarseness or let down, any slight deterioration of quality in feeling, any fear that you are becoming cheapened by the wrong kind of people or the wrong kind of amusement (and most of the amusement she sees is tawdry in her eyes), hurts her—more than hurts her.”
“It’s very highbrow,” said Dick, “but I suppose you mean she wants a perpetual honeymoon.”
Matthew threw up his hands. “There you go—vaudeville stuff again.”
Dick flushed angrily. “Well, I’ll be damned if I think you’ve said one definite tangible thing—one thing a man can tie to.”
“I didn’t mean to. Cecily’s troubles are quite mental—quite intangible—partly the result of an education which is totally out of accord with the times. It leaves women too sensitive for these days. Fliss’s High School was better for her.”
“So you think I can’t appreciate my wife.”
“There are precious few people who can appreciate Cecily.”
“And what do you advise me to do about it?”
“Why, I don’t know that there’s much to be done. You might try to please her in little things; give up the things that seem silly to her—dancing with a lot of silly idiots——”
Dick let his fists drop on his desk with a kind of angry decision.