"Of course I regret it!"she cried."What woman worth her salt doesn't regret it,doesn't want to live,even if she has to suffer for it?And those people--the revolutionaries,I mean,the rebels--they live,they're the only ones who do live.The rest of us degenerate in a painless paralysis we think of as pleasure.Look at me!I'm incapable of committing a single original act,even though I might conceive one.
Well,there was a time when I should have been equal to anything and wouldn't have cared a--a damn."I believed her....
I fell into the habit of dropping in on Nancy at least twice a week on my way from the office,and I met her occasionally at other houses.I did not tell Maude of that first impulsive visit;but one evening a few weeks later she asked me where I had been,and when I told her she made no comment.I came presently to the conclusion that this renewed intimacy did not trouble her--which was what I wished to believe.Of course I had gone to Nancy for a stimulation I failed to get at home,and it is the more extraordinary,therefore,that I did not become more discontented and restless:I suppose this was because I had grown to regard marriage as most of the world regarded it,as something inevitable and humdrum,as a kind of habit it is useless to try to shake off.But life is so full of complexities and anomalies that I still had a real affection for Maude,and I liked her the more because she didn't expect too much of me,and because she didn't complain of my friendship with Nancy although Ishould vehemently have denied there was anything to complain of.Irespected Maude.If she was not a squaw,she performed religiously the traditional squaw duties,and made me comfortable:and the fact that we lived separate mental existences did not trouble me because I never thought of hers--or even that she had one.She had the children,and they seemed to suffice.She never renewed her appeal for my confidence,and I forgot that she had made it.
Nevertheless I always felt a tug at my heartstrings when June came around and it was time for her and the children to go to Mattapoisett for the summer;when I accompanied them,on the evening of their departure,to the smoky,noisy station and saw deposited in the sleeping-car their luggage and shawls and bundles.They always took the evening train to Boston;it was the best.Tom and Susan were invariably there with candy and toys to see them off--if Susan and her children had not already gone--and at such moments my heart warmed to Tom.And I was astonished as Iclung to Matthew and Moreton and little Biddy at the affection that welled up within me,saddened when I kissed Maude good-bye.She too was sad,and always seemed to feel compunctions for deserting me.
"I feel so selfish in leaving you all alone!"she would say."If it weren't for the children--they need the sea air.But I know you don't miss me as I miss you.A man doesn't,I suppose....Please don't work so hard,and promise me you'll come on and stay a long time.You can if you want to.We shan't starve."She smiled."That nice room,which is yours,at the southeast corner,is always waiting for you.And you do like the sea,and seeing the sail-boats in the morning."I felt an emptiness when the train pulled out.I did love my family,after all!I would go back to the deserted house,and I could not bear to look in at the nursery door,at the little beds with covers flung over them.Why couldn't I appreciate these joys when I had them?
One evening,as we went home in an open street-car together,after such a departure,Tom blurted out:--"Hugh,I believe I care for your family as much as for my own.I often wonder if you realize how wonderful these children are!My boys are just plain ruffians--although I think they're pretty decent ruffians,but Matthew has a mind--he's thoughtful--and an imagination.He'll make a name for himself some day if he's steered properly and allowed to develop naturally.Moreton's more like my boys.And as for Chickabiddy!--"words failed him.
I put my hand on his knee.I actually loved him again as I had loved and yearned for him as a child,--he was so human,so dependable.And why couldn't this feeling last?He disapproved--foolishly,I thought--of my professional career,and this was only one of his limitations.But Iknew that he was loyal.Why hadn't I been able to breathe and be reasonably happy in that atmosphere of friendship and love in which I had been placed--or rather in which I had placed myself?....Before the summer was a day or two older I had grown accustomed to being alone,and enjoyed the liberty;and when Maude and the children returned in the autumn,similarly,it took me some days to get used to the restrictions imposed by a household.I run the risk of shocking those who read this by declaring that if my family had been taken permanently out of my life,I should not long have missed them.But on the whole,in those years my marriage relation might be called a negative one.There were moments,as I have described,when I warmed to Maude,moments when I felt something akin to a violent antagonism aroused by little mannerisms and tricks she had.The fact that we got along as well as we did was probably due to the orthodox teaching with which we had been inoculated,--to the effect that matrimony was a moral trial,a shaking-down process.But moral trials were ceasing to appeal to people,and more and more of them were refusing to be shaken down.We didn't cut the Gordian knot,but we managed to loosen it considerably.
