"You knew me when you married me. Why did you marry me?"
"Why—why did I marry you?"
Margaret's voice had the habit of growing lower and stiller as passion touched her heart. "Yes—you may well ask that! Why does a woman see those things she wants to see in a man, and is blind to what she might see! … Oh, why does any woman marry, my husband?"
And in the silence that followed they were both thinking of those days in Washington, eight years before, when they had met. He was acting as secretary to some great man then, and was flashing in the pleasant light of youth, popularity, social approbation. He had "won out" against the Englishman, Hollenby,—why, he had never exactly known.
Margaret was thinking of that why, as a woman does think at times for long years afterwards, trying to solve the psychological puzzle of her foolish youth! Hollenby was certainly the abler man, as well as the more brilliant prospect. And there were others who had loved her, and whom even as a girl she had wit enough to value…. A girl's choice, when her heart speaks, as the novelists say, is a curious process, compounded of an infinite number of subtle elements,—suggestions, traits of character, and above all temporary atmospheric conditions of mind. It is a marvel if it ever can be resolved into its elements! … The Englishman—she was almost his—had lost her because once he had betrayed to the girl the brute. One frightened glimpse of the animal in his nature had been enough. And in the rebound from this chance perception of man as brute, she had listened to Lawrence Pole, because he seemed to her all that the other was not,—high-souled, poetic, restrained, tender,—all the ideals. With him life would be a communion of lovely and lovable things. He would secure some place in the diplomatic service abroad, and they would live on the heights, with art, ideas, beauty….
"Wasn't I a fool—not to know!" she remarked aloud. She was thinking, with the tolerance of mature womanhood: 'I could have tamed the brute in the other one. At least he was a man!' "Well, we dream our dreams, sentimental little girls that we are! And after a time we open our eyes like kittens on life. I have opened mine, Larry,—very wide open. There isn't a sentimental chord in my being that you can twang any longer…. But we can be good-tempered and sensible about it. Run along now and have your cigar, or go over to the country club and find some one to play billiards,—only let me finish what you are pleased to call my rotten reading,—it is so amusing!"
She had descended from the crest of her passion, and could play with the situation. But her husband, realizing in some small way the significance of these words they had exchanged, still probed the ground:—
"If you feel like that, why do you still live with me? Why do you consent to bear my name?"
The pomposity of the last words roused a wicked gleam in his wife's eyes.
She looked up from her article again.
"Perhaps I shan't always 'consent to bear your name,' Larry. I'm still thinking, and I haven't thought it all out yet. When I do, I may give up your name,—go away. Meanwhile I think we get on very well: I make a comfortable home for you; you have your children,—and they are well brought up. I have kept you trying to toe the mark, too. Take it all in all, I haven't been a bad wife,—if we are to present references?"