Tears swelled in Julia’s eyes.  “Don’t,” she begged huskily, “don’t get bitter.”

Marie returned her look with the simple and wide-eyed one she remembered so well.  “I’m not,” she stated; “I was just thinking, and it comes to that.  You must feed a man and look after him and make him comfortable, or—­or you wouldn’t keep him at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that.  But I sometimes think,” she whispered, “if I let myself go, get plain and drab, will I keep him then?”

“It is in his service,” said Julia.

Marie said wisely:  “That doesn’t count.  And often—­I get frightened when he sometimes takes me out, and we dine at a restaurant.  I look round and see the difference between most of the women there and me.  In restaurants one always seems to see such wonderful women—­women who seem as if their purpose was just being taken out to dinner and to be attractive.  I compare my clothes with theirs and my hands with theirs; and I think:  ‘Supposing Osborn is comparing me, too?’”

“He wouldn’t.”

“Not consciously, perhaps.  But he is admiring the other women all the time; I see him doing it.  Why shouldn’t he?  All the women he sees about him in town—­the pretty girls in the streets....  He used to admire me so much, when I was very pretty ... the—­the things he used to say!  But now, I sometimes wonder—­”

“What else do you wonder, poor kid?”

“When he goes out alone—­sometimes to dinner—­in the evenings—­”

“Whether he’s taking someone—­”

Marie nodded.  “Someone prettier than I; as I used to be; someone who’s not tired with having children; and who hasn’t rusted and got dull and stupid from thinking of nothing but grocers’ bills, and from staying at home.”

“You must try not to think—­”

“But I do think.  Men are like that; men hate being annoyed and want to be amused.  They get to—­to—­marriage is funny; Osborn seems to get to look upon me as someone who’s always going to ask for something.  I—­I know when he had a nice commission the other day, he didn’t tell me about it, in case there was something for the children I’d be asking him for.”

“Oh!”

“It hurts,” said Marie, “always to be considered an asker; but of course men don’t think of it like that.”

“They ought to think, then.”

“Men aren’t like women.  They set their own lines of conduct.”

“What’s that in the marriage service,” Julia inquired, “about bestowing upon a woman all a man’s worldly goods?”

“Ah, well, you think all those things at the time; but they don’t work out, really.”

“As I always thought,” said Julia.