“I have offered time and again to give up my work; now it has reached a point where I simply must finish it.”
“Of course you must; I should be the first to oppose you were you to suggest anything different.”
“Then why are you unhappy? I don’t understand you at all.”
“I know you don’t, and you understand yourself just as little. The work you are doing is simply an incident; the results of that work in making you an entirely different man is the main point. Do you not feel that yourself?”
“So that is it,” replied Armstrong. “The work has made a different man of me, and you object to the change.”
“No, it is not the change which has made me unhappy. During these weeks you have become infinitely bigger and stronger and grander, and I admire you just that much the more.”
“Then why are you unhappy?”
“Because”—Helen choked down a little sob—“because, as you say, I am so weak. Because it has left me just that much behind, and has shown me how little suited I am to be your wife.”
“How you do magnify things!” exclaimed Armstrong. “It is not an uncommon thing for a husband to have interests apart from his wife; it is no reflection on the wife.”
“But how much better—how much more helpful—if the husband and the wife can share the same interests?”