This “accommodation” was not unaccompanied by fever.  My longing to realize my love for Nancy kept me in a constant state of tension—­of “nerves”; for our relationship had merely gone one step farther, we had reached a point where we acknowledged that we loved each other, and paradoxically halted there; Nancy clung to her demand for new sanctions with a tenacity that amazed and puzzled and often irritated me.  And yet, when I look back upon it all, I can see that some of the difficulty lay with me:  if she had her weakness—­which she acknowledged—­I had mine—­and kept it to myself.  It was part of my romantic nature not to want to break her down.  Perhaps I loved the ideal better than the woman herself, though that scarcely seems possible.

We saw each other constantly.  And though we had instinctively begun to be careful, I imagine there was some talk among our acquaintances.  It is to be noted that the gossip never became riotous, for we had always been friends, and Nancy had a saving reputation for coldness.  It seemed incredible that Maude had not discovered my secret, but if she knew of it, she gave no sign of her knowledge.  Often, as I looked at her, I wished she would.  I can think of no more expressive sentence in regard to her than the trite one that she pursued the even tenor of her way; and I found the very perfection of her wifehood exasperating.  Our relationship would, I thought, have been more endurable if we had quarrelled.  And yet we had grown as far apart, in that big house, as though we had been separated by a continent; I lived in my apartments, she in hers; she consulted me about dinner parties and invitations; for, since we had moved to Grant Avenue, we entertained and went out more than before.  It seemed as though she were making every effort consistent with her integrity and self-respect to please me.  Outwardly she conformed to the mould; but I had long been aware that inwardly a person had developed.  It had not been a spontaneous development, but one in resistance to pressure; and was probably all the stronger for that reason.  At times her will revealed itself in astonishing and unexpected flashes, as when once she announced that she was going to change Matthew’s school.

“He’s old enough to go to boarding-school,” I said.  “I’ll look up a place for him.”

“I don’t wish him to go to boarding-school yet, Hugh,” she said quietly.

“But that’s just what he needs,” I objected.  “He ought to have the rubbing-up against other boys that boarding-school will give him.  Matthew is timid, he should have learned to take care of himself.  And he will make friendships that will help him in a larger school.”

“I don’t intend to send him,” Maude said.

“But if I think it wise?”

“You ought to have begun to consider such things many years ago.  You have always been too—­busy to think of the children.  You have left them to me.  I am doing the best I can with them.”