“Right! Right! Right!” she repeated fiercely. “Who made _you_ the judge of what is right for _me_? You’re my husband, but that doesn’t make you my judge. You live your own life, and I must live mine; and this life you try to make me lead is not mine. Stop!—listen to me first. You’re so blinded with self-satisfaction, so obstinately sure that you’re right, that you’ve forgotten all about me. I’ve become just a mere item in your existence, a part of yourself. You’ve forgotten that I’ve a self, or you couldn’t really believe that this life would satisfy me. I’m young. Am I to have no fun in life? No amusements, no gayety, no pleasure, no friends? Am I to go on living here, seeing nobody worth seeing, going nowhere, just drudging along in this dismal hole?” She stopped, panting, and he broke in—— “I can’t listen to you, Marian. Do you understand what you’re saying?” “Yes, yes,” she interrupted, “I understand; it’s you who can’t. Can’t? Won’t—won’t! I sometimes wonder if you’re a man or a mere machine?” “If you knew how much you are hurting me, Marian, you’d know how much of a man I am. Don’t you think I’ve seen how discontented you are, but you wouldn’t take my advice; you wouldn’t try to do what I know would make you happy. You’re—you’re so selfish; you criticise everything by whether it brings happiness to you. You have everything that I have, and could share everything with me, and be quite content and happy. But you do nothing; you keep outside my life and won’t let me help you.” “I’ve heard all this before! What’s the use of preaching to me? Keep your sermons for those who agree with you. You’ve talked like this at me till I’m sick of hearing you.” “Why not do as I ask you—work?” “Why should I work?” she asked fiercely. “Is it really you, Marian? I thought you so different.” “I was different when you married me; I was a baby then, an ignorant fool of a girl. I’ve grown into a woman, but you haven’t noticed it.” “A woman has more heart——” “Copy-book platitudes won’t help us.” “Don’t you love me?” he asked, straining eagerly toward her for the reply. “No. I never did.” “You never loved me?” he stammered, standing up and leaning heavily on the back of the chair. “You said you did—why did you marry me?” “I suppose I thought I loved you—because I was lonely, poor; because I didn’t understand what love was; because I didn’t love anyone else; because I didn’t know any other man. If we’d gone on living down there in the country, I daresay I should have gone on vegetating. But you dragged me up here, and I’ve woken up. You said I was selfish. What about you? You knew what you were bringing me to and never stopped to think whether it would be good for me, this dull, stupid life, with nothing to care for, nothing to hope for, nothing to do.” “You never really loved me? Oh, my God, why am I punished like this?”