but you don't understand what
a woman craves,--she doesn't want only to be a good housekeeper, a good
mother, but she wants to share a little, at any rate, in the life of her
husband, in his troubles as well as in his successes. She wants to be of
some little use, of some little help to him."

My feelings were reduced to a medley.

"But you are a help to me--a great help," I protested.

She shook her head. "I wish I were," she said.

It suddenly occurred to me that she might be. I was softened, and alarmed
by the spectacle she had revealed of the widening breach between us. I
laid my hand on her shoulder.

"Well, I'll try to do better, Maude."

She looked up at me, questioningly yet gratefully, through a mist of
tears. But her reply--whatever it might have been--was forestalled by the
sound of shouts and laughter in the hallway. She sprang up and ran to the
door.

"It's the children," she exclaimed, "they've come home from Susan's
party!"

It begins indeed to look as if I were writing this narrative upside down,
for I have said nothing about children. Perhaps one reason for this
omission is that I did not really appreciate them, that I found it
impossible to take the same minute interest in them as Tom, for instance,
who was, apparently, not content alone with the six which he possessed,
but had adopted mine. One of them, little Sarah, said "Uncle Tom" before
"Father." I do not mean to say that I had not occasional moments of
tenderness toward them, but they were out of my thoughts much of the
time. I have often wondered, since, how they regarded me; how, in their
little minds, they defined the relationship. Generally, when I arrived
home in the evening I liked to sit down before my study fire and read the
afternoon newspapers or a magazine; but occasionally I went at once to
the nursery for a few moments, to survey with complacency the medley of
toys on the floor, and to kiss all three. They received my caresses with
a certain shyness--the two younger ones, at least, as though they were at
a loss to place me as a factor in the establishment. They tumbled over
each other to greet Maude, and even Tom. If I were an enigma to them,
what must they have thought of him? Sometimes I would discover him on the
nursery floor, with one or two of his own children, building towers and
castles and railroad stations, or forts to be attacked and demolished by
regiments of lead soldiers. He was growing comfortable-looking, if