"What a lucky fellow young Musgrave is," Ted had grumbled. "He was never a fellow for work, and now he need not do another stroke of business for the remainder of his life. See if I don't pick up a rich wife for myself one of these days."
"What! you would consent to live on your wife's money!" returned his brother, with a face of disgust. "You would help yourself out of her pocket, in order that you might eat the bread of idleness! a nice manly notion that."
"Why should a man be bound to work for both if he does not choose?" replied Ted, sulkily. "I thought this was an enlightened age, and that the rights of women would entitle them to the honor of helping to be bread-winner. Don't pull such a long face, Garth; I wouldn't marry any girl if she were weighted in gold unless I liked her, only I mean to invest my affections prudently."
"I don't think I could ever fall in love with a rich woman," was Garth's emphatic answer. "I believe I am peculiar on this point. If I ever marry, my wife must be dependent on me, not I on her. Why one of the chief pleasures of matrimony must be to bully your wife sometimes, just to see how nicely she takes it; but if she has all the pounds, shillings, and pence on her side, she might turn round and bully me."
"Garth, how can you be so absurd," broke in Cathy.
"You see, a husband ought to have all the power," he continued, in his droll, half-serious way. "The threat of withholding a new dress would reduce any woman to a state of abject submission. I should like my wife, provided I ever have one, which is not likely if you are going to be so extravagant, Cathy, I should like her to coax and wheedle me out of all her ribbons and fineries; but if she could demand a cheque for a new silk dress whenever she liked-'I should thank you to remember, Mr. Clayton, who it is who brought you all that money'—why what a fool I should feel."
"Langley, do hear him; when he pays all our bills without looking at a single item."
"Ah, but you are not my wife, my dear, that makes all the difference. The immaculate creature whom I honor with my regard must be made aware that she is marrying a man with a hobby. Why," finished Garth, with a sudden glow of strong feeling on his face, "it must destroy the very nature and meaning of things not to feel that your wife is dependent upon you for everything."
How well Queenie recalled this conversation. How truly it spoke of the nature of the man—his sturdy independence, his pride and love of authority, and also of the tenderness that loved to shield and protect.
Garth always cared most for what was dependent on him; feminine self-reliance seldom pleased him. Queenie's independence was simply owing to circumstances; she was strong-minded and yet not self-asserting; her force of will seldom came to the surface. In every-day life, amongst those who loved her, she was singularly submissive and yielding, and from the first she had placed implicit trust in Garth Clayton, in a way that had touched him to the heart.