"Call it over-conscientiousness then. I wish you to do your best work, of course, but one can't expect to do best work invariably. Everything was going so nicely that you must perceive it will be inconvenient to have to economize as we did before."
Littleton looked at his wife with a glance of loving distress. "You wouldn't really care a button. I know you wouldn't, Selma," he said, stoutly.
"Of course not, if it were necessary," she answered. "Only I don't wish to do so unless it is necessary. I am not controverting your decision about the stocks, though I think your imagination, as you say, is to blame. I would rather cut my right hand off than persuade you to act contrary to your conscience. But it is inconvenient, Wilbur, you must admit, to give up the things we have become accustomed to."
"We shall be able to keep the horse. I am certain of that."
"I wish you to see my side of it. Say that you do," she said, with shrill intensity.
"It is because I do see it that I am troubled, Selma. For myself I am no happier now than I was when we lived more simply. I can't believe that you will really find it a hardship to deny yourself such extravagances as our theatre party last week. Being a man," he added, after a pause, "I suppose I may not appreciate how important and seductive some of these social observances appear to a woman, and heaven knows my chief wish in life is to do everything in my power to make you happy. You must be aware of that, dearest. I delight to work hard for your sake. But it seems almost ludicrous to be talking of social interests to you, of all women. Why, at the time we were married, I feared that you would cut yourself off from reasonable pleasures on account of your dislike of everything frivolous. I remember I encouraged you not to take too ascetic a view of such things. So I am bound to believe that your side is my side—that we both will find true happiness in not attempting to compete with people whose tastes are not our tastes, and whose aims are not our aims."
"Then you think I have deteriorated," she said, with a superior smile.
"I think of you as the most conscientious woman I ever met. It was only natural that you should be spurred by our neighbors, the Williamses, to make a better showing socially before the world. I have been glad to see you emulous up to a certain point. You must realize though, that we cannot keep pace with them, even if we so desire. Already they are in the public eye. He appears to have made considerable money, and his views on the stock-market are given prominence by the press. He and his wife are beginning to be recognized by people who were ignorant of their existence four years ago. You told me last week that Mrs. Williams had attended one of the fashionable balls, and I saw in yesterday's newspaper a description of her toilette at another. It begins to look as if, in a few years more, their ambition might be realized, and the doors of the Morton Price mansion open wide to admit this clever country cousin to the earthly paradise. It must be evident to you, Selma, that very shortly we shall see only the dust of their chariot-wheels in the dim social distance. Williams told me to-day that he has bought a house near the park."
"He has bought a new house? They are going to move?" exclaimed Selma, sitting up straight, and with a fierce light in her eyes.
"Yes. He was going home to tell his wife. It seems that they have been talking vaguely of moving for some time. An acquaintance happened to offer him a house, and Williams closed the bargain on the spot in his customary chain-lightning style. I shall be sorry to have them go on some accounts, for they have always been friendly, and you seem fond of the wife, but we shall find it easier, perhaps, when they are gone, to live according to our own ideas."