never believed that he belonged to the common
lot.

He announced to everybody that Fate was treating him with frightful
injustice. Why should _he_ be maimed and shackled in this way--he, a man
who had always led a wholly simple, natural life? _He_ had never shut
himself up in an office, burned his eyes out over law papers, or
narrowed his chest over ledgers; _he_ had never sacrificed his liberty
in the sordid pursuit of money-getting. On the contrary, he had admired
all beautiful things wherever they were to be found, he had breathed the
fresh air of heaven, had seen all there was of life and nature, and
enjoyed it all in a full, free, sane way. It was monstrous, it was
ridiculous, to strike at _him_; strike, and welcome, at the men who kept
their windows down! Thus he inveighed, thus he protested, and all in
perfectly good faith; Lanse believed of himself exactly what he said.

But once established in a house of his own, and able to float about on
the river, promptly his good-humor came back to him; for Lanse, while
not in the least amiable, had always had an abundance of good-humor. He
began to laugh again, he began to tell Margaret stories connected with
his life abroad; Lanse's stories, though the language was apt to be as
condensed as that of telegraphic despatches, were invariably good.

There had been no formal explanations between these two, no serious
talk. Lanse hated serious talk; and as for explanations, as he had never
in his life been in the habit of giving them, it was not likely that he
was going to begin now. When Margaret first arrived, and he could
scarcely see her from pain, he had managed to say, "Oh, you're back?
glad to see you"--as though she had left him but the week before--and
this matter-of-course tone he had adhered to ever since; it was the
easier since his wife showed no desire to alter it.

He required no direct services from her, his men did everything. As he
grew better, he gave her the position of a comrade whom it was a
pleasure to meet when he came (in his wheeled chair) to the parlor in
the evening; he thanked her gallantly for being there. In this way they
lived on, Margaret had been for nine or ten weeks under the same roof
with him before he made any allusion to their personal relations; even
then it was only a remark or two, uttered easily, and as though he had
happened to think of it just then. The remarks embodied the idea that
the "interruption" (that was what he called it