"I'll arrange at the bank, and give you a chequebook."
She said next:
"A whole year! Baby'll forget you."
The remark seemed to him peculiarly womanish and silly. What on earth did it matter, anyway? But he had patience with her, knowing how sorely better men than he were tried by their wives.
"Well," he observed, "kids' memories are very short, aren't they?"
Marie went on sorting the clothes; presently she drew a chair to the table, and began to work with needle and thread, darning, tightening buttons, performing the many jobs which only a wife would find. As she sewed she glanced again and again at her husband; he had sunk deep into his chair in an abandonment of rest, his legs stretched before him, his pipe between his teeth, his shining eyes fixed upon the fire. Now and again his lips twitched to a smile over the pipe stem. He was thinking, imagining, revelling in the freedom of the approaching year. The marriage task had infinitely wearied him. For a year, with a well-lined pocket, and a first-class ticket, he was to travel away from it all. He was deeply allured, and his delight was again young and robust; he looked forward most eagerly, as a school-boy to a promising holiday.
After she had sewed awhile with a methodical tightening of all the buttons, and an unconscious tightening of her lips too, she said:
"Well, you'll come back and find us all the same."
He roused himself slightly.
"I hope so. Take care of yourselves."