"I feel sometimes as if I could not bear it another moment--as if I must shriek, as if I must scream, as if I must take Rob by the arms and shake him till I drop! It's so maddening to be taken so literally at one's word, and to be expected to sit smiling on the top of a pedestal while the world rocks. Yesterday, going over that hateful, stuffy little house, when he would persistently make the best of everything, even the view of the whitewashed yard and I had to go on smiling and smiling as if I agreed, I felt as if something in my head would snap... I believe it will some day, and I shall lose control, and rage, and say terrible things, and he will be broken hearted with sorrow--and surprise! He hasn't an idea, not a glimmering ghost of an idea, what I'm suffering! I said I didn't care, and he _believed_ it, just as simply as if I'd told him the time. Oh, dear! the blindness of men." "And the strangeness of women!" Vanna looked at her with her tender, whimsical smile. "You believed it yourself at the time, dear girl. I can imagine how eloquent you would be. No wonder poor Robert was convinced. I was overcome with admiration for you that first week, but being a woman, I knew that the reaction must come. That's inevitable; but you must live up to yourself, Jean; you've created a precedent by being magnificently brave, and you must keep it up." "I--_can't_!" said Jean, and the tears rolled down her cheeks. "That night I could think of nothing but Rob--his poor face! I would have cut off my hand to make him smile, but my home--my home! To have to break it up! My home where we came after we were married, where the babies were born... It breaks my heart to leave it, and to give up all my treasures that I collected with such joy... And Robert doesn't see, he doesn't know--that seems hardest of all. If he just realised--" "He would suffer again! Is _that_ what you want?" Jean cast a startled glance, and sat silent, considering the problem. Her eyes were circled by dark violet stains, as from long wakeful nights; there were hollows at her temples which the cloudy hair could not altogether conceal. "It sounded rather like it," she said slowly at last, "but _no_! indeed I don't--I love him far too much. But just sympathetic a little, Vanna--and _appreciative_ of my loss! Yesterday when we stood in that little back dining-room if he had said to me: `it's awfully hard on you, darling, but it's only for a time: put up with it for a time!' I should have hugged him, and felt a heroine. But he looked out on that awful backyard, and said serenely, `oh, it doesn't matter about views! You never cared about looking out of windows,' and went on calmly planning where we could put a sideboard. And I wanted to scream! He doesn't _understand_, Vanna. He doesn't understand--"