“Crying!” exclaimed her husband. “What extraordinary creatures women are! Now what in the world can you be crying about.” This unexpected reception of his news was really infinitely more irritating to him than the “elation” he had in imagination deprecated. “Surely,” he went on, as a thought occurred to him, “surely you are not crying about Roger? You never saw him, you know, and for that matter—” for Beauchamp by no means desired to appear deficient in decorum and good feeling himself—“for that matter I scarcely knew him either. Of course it is very sad; but, after all, sad things are always happening—it’s the way of the world. But you must not take other people’s troubles to heart so, Eugenia.”
“But I am not crying about Roger,” said Eugenia, forcing back her tears and wishing she could honestly attribute them to sorrow for the poor boy’s death. “Of course I am very sorry for him, at least for his people, but it wasn’t that that made me cry.”
“Then what was it?” said Beauchamp, coldly.
“It was—I can’t exactly explain—” she began, looking as if she was ready to cry again. “I think it was a sort of feeling of disappointment that our life is going to be so different from what I thought it would be. I had planned it all,” her voice faltered; “I thought I would show you how well I could manage, and that we should be so happy without being rich.”
Captain Chancellor got up from his chair and walked impatiently to the window.
“Really, Eugenia,” he said, contemptuously, “I had no idea you were so utterly childish. I had no idea any woman could be so silly.”
His tone roused her a little.
“Wiser people than I have thought the same,” she answered. “When people really care for each other it draws and keeps them closer together to have to consult each other about everything, always to act together, even perhaps to suffer together. It is in prosperity that they drift apart—when there is no need for either to deny himself or herself for the other.”
Captain Chancellor gave a little laugh; he was recovering his good humour, however.
“All very well in theory; all very pretty and romantic,” he said; “but I can assure you, my dear child, it is very seldom the case in practice. Why, don’t you remember the old proverb about what happens ‘when poverty comes in at the door.’ There are few truer sayings.”