“I have to sit and think of my health!” she would exclaim.
“It isn’t your health, dear,” he would plead; “it’s the health of the child!”
“I know that. But then, am I always to sit at home and be placid, while you go away to wrestle with the angels?”
“Not always, Corydon,” he said. “This will pass—”
“If I do,” she cried, “I only stay to wrestle with the demons. And is that so very good for a pregnant woman?”
“My dear!” he protested.
“It’s just as I said!” she went on. “I ought not to have had the child! I’m only a school-girl, with a school-girl’s tasks. And I try and try, but I can’t help it—everything within me rebels at the cares of mother-hood.”
“That’s one mood, dear,” he said. “But you know that’s not true always.”
“It’s all the clearer to me,” she insisted, “since we’ve had to give up our music. I can’t work at the piano any more—I may never be able to.”
“But even if you could, Corydon, I couldn’t afford to get you one now.”