“But that is not so, dearest,” he would answer. He would try to explain to her how much the newspaper had meant to him, and just why his annoyance had got the better of him. So they would rehearse the scene over again; and like as not their irritation would sweep over them, and before they realized it they would find themselves disputing once more. Thyrsis would be making a desperate attempt to bring her to a realization of his difficulties; he would be in the midst of pouring out some eloquence, when she would interrupt him. “But Thyrsis, wait a moment--you do not understand!” “I am speaking!” he would say. “But, Thyrsis--” “I am speaking!” He would not be interrupted. But then would come a time when they sat down together and talked all this out, perceiving it as one more aspect of the disharmony of their temperaments. It no fault of either of them, they would agree; it was just that they were different. Thyrsis had a simile that he used--“It’s a marriage between a butterfly and a hippopotamus. You don’t blame the butterfly because it can’t get down into the water and snort; and on the other hand, when the hippopotamus tries to flap his wings and flit about among the flowers, he doesn’t make a success of it.” There would be times when he took Corydon’s point of view entirely. She was beautiful and good; her naïveté and guilelessness were the essence of her charm and how preposterous it was to expect her to think about newspapers, or to be familiar with the price of beefsteaks! As for him--he was a blundering creature, dull and pragmatical; he was a great spiny monster that she had drawn up from the ocean-depths. She would cut off his spines, but at once they grew out again; she could do nothing with him at all! But then she would protest--“It’s not so bad as that, Thyrsis. You have your work.” “Yes, that’s it,” he would answer. “My work! I’m just a thinking-machine. I’m fit for nothing else. And here I am--married!” He would say that, and he would mean it; he would try to act upon the conviction. Of course Corydon’s nature was a thing more lovely than his; and, of course, it ought to have its way, to grow in freedom and joy. But alas--there was “the economic screw”! His qualities--hateful though they might be--were the product of stern conditions; they were the qualities which had to dominate in their lives, if they were to survive in the grim struggle for life.