I wanted a
partner and a home and children and somebody to sit at the head of my
table when I wanted to be--public--and yet somebody you could be at home
with when you wanted to be at home. And I thought I had them all in Mary--
I thought I was being about the most sensible man in the world.
"Well, up till after both children were born I think I tried pretty hard.
I gave her all I could think of--materially at least. And then I found out
in spite of myself that you can't be married to a woman--even bearably--
and neither be lovers nor friends with her. And Mary and I never got
beyond the social acquaintance stage.
"It wasn't all Mary's fault either--I can see that now. A good deal was in
the way she'd been brought up--they weren't modern about the blisses of
ignorance in the nineties. But the rest of it was Mary and she couldn't
have changed it any more than she could have been rude to a servant or
raised her voice more than usual when she really wanted something done.
"She'd been brought up never to be demonstrative--that was one thing. But
that wasn't the main trouble--the main trouble was her most curious, most
frigid self-sufficiency.
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