“And you’re going to live here alone?”
“Here, with the children.”
“How is Dick going to do without the children?”
“I think he can. He can’t bear living with me for the sake of them and I must have them.”
“Ah, Cecily, this won’t last. You and Dick are a pair of naughty children. I’ve a notion to go down to the club and bring him home by the ear.”
Cecily stiffened. “Promise me you won’t do anything like that! Don’t make it begin all over again now. We’ve tried and tried, and we can’t.”
“But what is it? Is this nonsense Della talks about Dick’s wanting to go out more and your refusing the actual reason you’ve dared to break up your home?”
“That’s what people will say,” answered Cecily, “but of course that’s just a symptom of what’s the matter with us. The trouble is that we don’t think marriage means the same thing; we don’t mean the same thing by it. And every outward expression of my idea jars on him—and his on me. We’ve become angry and furtive and quarrelsome and condemning.”
“And yet I’ll bet you will be reconciled within a month. Perhaps sooner. It may be that this little separation is just what you both need to straighten out all this trouble.”
“Reconciled! Reconciled!” repeated Cecily. “We’ve been reconciled a dozen times in the past year. No, father, that won’t do it.”