Ah, the “women need” was flung away, like a stone thrown into the sea! It was the “I needed” that was held fast, that was shown to Artois now. And the “I” stood to Hermione for herself. But might it not have stood to the world for many a woman?
“I needed some one to whom I could be kind, for whom I could think, plan, hope, weave a fabric of ambitious dreams, look forward along the path that leads to glory. I needed some one for whom I could be unselfish, to whom I could often offer those small burnt sacrifices whose smoke women love to see ascending towards God, burnt sacrifices of small personal desire, small personal plans and intentions. I needed some one to need my encouragement, my admiration—frequently expressed—my perpetual sympathy hovering about him like a warm cloud of fragrant incense, my gentle criticism, leading him to efforts which would win from the world, and from me, more admiration of and wonder at his energy and genius. I needed some one to stir within me woman’s soft passion for forgiveness, woman’s delight in petting the child who has been naughty, but who puts the naughtiness aside and runs home to be good again. I needed some one to set upon a pedestal.
“These needs you fully satisfied.
“You gave me generously opportunities for kindness, for thoughtfulness, for impersonal ambition, for looking forward on your behalf, for unselfishness, for the sacrifice of my little personal desires, plans, and intentions, for encouragement of you, for admiration of your abilities, for sympathy—even for gentle criticism leading you to efforts which won from me eventually a greater respect for your powers and for secret forgiveness which ended in open petting. When I prepared the pedestal you were quite ready to mount it, and to remain upon it without any demonstration of fatigue.
“And so many needs of mine you satisfied.
“But I had more needs, and far other needs, than these.
“I needed not only to make many gifts, to satisfy my passion for generosity, but to have many gifts, and gifts of a special nature, made in return to me. I needed to feel another often, if not perpetually and exclusively, intent on me. I needed to feel tenderness—watchful, quick, eager tenderness, not tenderness slow-footed and in blinkers—round about me.
“I needed a little blindness in my friend. That is true. But the blindness that I needed was not blindness to my little sacrifices, but blindness to my little faults.
“To a woman there is such a world of difference between the two! I longed for my friend to see the smoke ascending from my small burnt-offerings of self made for his sake. But I longed, too, for him not always to see with calm, clear eyes my petty failings, my minute vanities, my inconsistencies, my incongruities, my frequent lack of reasoning power and logical sequence, my gusts of occasional injustice—ending nearly always in a rain of undue benefits—my surely forgivable follies of sentiment, my irritabilities—how often due to physical causes which no man could ever understand!—my blunders of the head—of the heart I made but few, or none—my weak depressions, struggled against but not always conquered, my perhaps childish anxieties and apprehensions, my forebodings, not invariably well founded, my fleeting absurdities of temper, of temperament, of manner, or of word.
“But as definitely as my friend did not see my little sacrifices he saw my little faults, and he made me see that he saw them. Men are so free from the tender deceits that women are compact of.