“Oh, no, not of dishonesty!” she exclaimed.  “I can’t—­I won’t believe they would do that.”

“Pretty near it,” I said.  “If I listened to them, I should have to give up the law altogether.”

“Sometimes,” she answered in a low voice, “sometimes I wish you would.”

“I might have expected that you would take their point of view.”

As I was turning away she got up quickly and put her hand on my shoulder.

“Hugh, please don’t say such things—­you’ve no right to say them.”

“And you?” I asked.

“Don’t you see,” she continued pleadingly, “don’t you see that we are growing apart?  That’s the only reason I said what I did.  It isn’t that I don’t trust you, that I don’t want you to have your work, that I demand all of you.  I know a woman can’t ask that,—­can’t have it.  But if you would only give me—­give the children just a little, if I could feel that we meant something to you and that this other wasn’t gradually becoming everything, wasn’t absorbing you more and more, killing the best part of you.  It’s poisoning our marriage, it’s poisoning all your relationships.”

In that appeal the real Maude, the Maude of the early days of our marriage flashed forth again so vividly that I was taken aback.  I understood that she had had herself under control, had worn a mask—­a mask I had forced on her; and the revelation of the continued existence of that other Maude was profoundly disturbing.  Was it true, as she said, that my absorption in the great game of modern business, in the modern American philosophy it implied was poisoning my marriage? or was it that my marriage had failed to satisfy and absorb me?  I was touched—­but sentimentally touched:  I felt that this was a situation that ought to touch me; I didn’t wish to face it, as usual:  I couldn’t acknowledge to myself that anything was really wrong...  I patted her on the shoulder, I bent over and kissed her.

“A man in my position can’t altogether choose just how busy he will be,” I said smiling.  “Matters are thrust upon me which I have to accept, and I can’t help thinking about some of them when I come home.  But we’ll go off for a real vacation soon, Maude, to Europe—­and take the children.”

“Oh, I hope so,” she said.

From this time on, as may be supposed, our intercourse with both the Blackwoods began to grow less frequent, although Maude continued to see a great deal of Lucia; and when we did dine in their company, or they with us, it was quite noticeable that their former raillery was suppressed.  Even Tom had ceased to refer to me as the young Napoleon of the Law:  he clung to me, but he too kept silent on the subject of business.  Maude of course must have noticed this, must have sensed the change of atmosphere, have known that the Blackwoods, at least, were maintaining appearances for her sake.  She did not speak to me of the change, nor I to her; but when I thought of her silence, it