“If we all said that? You know I can’t leave my appointed work.”
Marian sat down and beat with her clenched fists upon the table.
“Can’t you see anyone’s life but your own?” she exclaimed fiercely. “You make me loathe you when you talk that way. Can’t you be a bit practical? Don’t you understand that things can’t go on like this? That you’re killing me? You’ve no pluck; I believe you’d be quite content to live all your life in these dingy lodgings. You say you love me——”
“I do—I do——”
“And won’t do a thing to make me happy! We can’t go on living together like this. Can we? Don’t you see we can’t?”
“What do you mean?”
“That something must be done to change it.”
“Wait, wait, let me think!” he said, tramping about the room; “let me think, let me think. No, Marian, I can’t go away; I must stop here and go on with my work. You see, dear, you’ve never really tried my way; if you worked hard all day like I do you’d have no time to be unhappy.”
“Why should I work?”
“Why shouldn’t you? That’s what we all have to do. And there’s so much work. You don’t know, I didn’t like to tell you, how it handicaps me, people knowing that you do nothing to help me. How can I urge them on when my wife does nothing? Then—what is it you want?”