“What would be the use of my explaining to you?” he returned. “You wouldn’t understand.”
How my heart yearned over my child those days! I would sit before the typewriter and in fancy hear her crying for her mother. Poor, sick little one, watched over by a strange woman, deprived of her proper nourishment. While I took dictation from my employer I thought only of her. The result, of course, was, that I lost my place. My husband showed his displeasure at this in various ways, and as the weeks went by and I was unsuccessful in obtaining another position, he became colder and more indifferent. He was neither a drinking nor an abusive man; but he could say such cruel and cutting things that I would a hundred times rather have been beaten and ill-used than compelled, as I was, to hear them. He even made me feel it a disgrace to be a woman and a mother. Once he said to me: “If you had had ambition of the right sort you would have perfected yourself in your stenography so that you could have taken cases in court. There’s a little fortune in that business.”
I was acquainted with a woman stenographer who reported divorce cases and who had described to me the work, so I answered: “I would rather die of hunger, my baby in my arms, then report divorce proceedings under the eyes of men in a court house.”
“Other women, as good as you, have done and are doing it,” he retorted.
“Other women, perhaps better than I, have done and are doing it,” I replied, “but all women are not alike. I am not that kind.”
“That’s so,” said he. “Well, they are the kind who are up to date. You are behind the times.”
One evening I left James and Miss Moran engaged with their work and went across the street to see a sick friend. When I returned I let myself into the house very softly for fear of awakening the baby whom I had left sleeping. As I stood in the hall I heard my husband’s voice in the sitting-room. This is what he was saying:
“I am a lonely man. There is no companionship between me and my wife.”
“Nonsense!” answered Miss Moran, as I thought a little impatiently. “Look over this paragraph, please, and tell me if you do not think it would be well to have it follow after the one ending with the words ‘ultimate concord,’ in place of that beginning with ‘These great principles.’”
“I cannot settle my mind upon the work tonight,” said James in a sort of thick, tired voice. “I want to talk to you—to win your sympathy—your love.”