“Sometime I will. I can’t do it now for it would take too long. I am very busy. I’ll tell you some other time.”
“I want you to do it now. Explain!” Clarinda broke forth. “I don’t believe you ever can explain! I see!—I know!—I may be stupid and only a child—but I know! Another illusion has been torn from me, and the bare bone is left.”
Clarinda turned to go out of the door that led to the upper reaches of the house. Peter went after her quickly. He took her hand in his and led her unwillingly toward the sofa that stood to one side.
“Sit down here,” he commanded, “for just a moment. I am going to try to tell you what I mean.” Clarinda sat down and bent her head forward looking intently at the floor in front of her. A deep serious gaze was in her eyes. “I am going to tell you what I mean,” he continued repeating himself. “It is true, Clarinda, that I’ve not much time, but we might as well thrash the thing out. I am going to put before you the position I occupy. You’ve always been square and able to see how just I am. Now listen.”
In the more than three years they had been married, Clarinda had lost none of her sweetness of look. Peter was forced to concede that much. Since the baby had come, it appeared to him that an added lustre had been given to her. She had developed wonderfully. Her figure and the lines of her young face had been metamorphosed. The baby represented to him another incident in life—a component part of the progress.
He sat down beside her and looked at her bent body. But he would not let himself be swayed, for he felt this would not be just to himself. The time had come when Clarinda must be brought to face the exalted position he had constructed for her and for himself.
They sat close together and Peter chose his words with infinite care. With as much certainty and deliberation as if he were placing a matter of great moment before one of the numerous boards of directors to which he belonged.
“This,” he began slowly, “is my position and I think you ought to realize it perfectly. I am, what is normally termed, a successful man, having arrived at this position by my own efforts. It is vital to me that you fill this position with me. You know, if you have ever considered the matter, that a wife assumes more or less the position of either an employee or a partner in a marriage contract. A thing like this is not all of one side. Butterflies are all well enough in a garden, but only in a garden. In the grand scheme they amount to nothing. If either of the contracting parties does not arise to his or her part, the one not arising assumes a minor position in the operation. In other words, she or he loses his standing as a partner. He or she stands apart in the fight. You will concede that life is a fight, a survival of the fittest. This you must acknowledge is correct. It stands without discussion. It is a syllogism.”
Clarinda listened to his words and her mind followed each sentence as he spoke. In her arose a wrath complete. He destroyed every foundation upon which she had hoped to build her existence. However, she said nothing.
Peter continued: “I admit I love you. It would distress me beyond words if I thought for an instant that love didn’t exist in me and if the same thing didn’t animate your spirit. You must understand that my love isn’t an effervescing thing, but a solid unfrothed condition. Stable and certain. Pushed aside, it is true, by necessities, but existent. Now, with that love, as I say a certainty, it is required of you to fulfill your part of the contract to expand, to develop, to spread, even as I have spread.”