19.  Sylvia had been something less than polite to me; and so I had not been home more than an hour before there came a messenger-boy with a note.  By way of reassuring her, I promised to come to see her the next morning; and when I did, and saw her lovely face so full of concern, I forgot entirely her worldly greatness, and did what I had longed to do from the beginning—­put my arms about her and kissed her.

“My dear girl,” I protested, “I don’t want to be a burden in your life—­I want to help you!’”

“But,” she exclaimed, “what must you have thought—­”

“I thought I had made a lucky escape!” I laughed.

She was proud—­proud as an Indian; it was hard for her to make admissions about her husband.  But then—­we were like two errant school-girls, who had been caught m an escapade!  “I don’t know what I’m going to do about him,” she said, with a wry smile.  “He really won’t listen—­I can’t make any impression on him.”

“Did he guess that you’d come there on purpose?” I asked.

“I told him,” she answered.

“You told him!”

“I’d meant to keep it secret—­I wouldn’t have minded telling him a fib about a little thing.  But he made it so very serious!”

I could understand that it must have been serious after the telling.  I waited for her to add what news she chose.

“It seems,” she said, “that my husband has a cousin, a pupil of Mrs. Frothingham’s.  You can imagine!”

“I can imagine Mrs. Frothingham may lose a pupil.”

“No; my husband says his Uncle Archibald always was a fool.  But how can anyone be so narrow!  He seemed to take Mrs. Frothingham as a personal affront.”

This was the most definite bit of vexation against her husband that she had ever let me see.  I decided to turn it into a jest.  “Mrs. Frothingham will be glad to know she was understood,” I said.

“But seriously, why can’t men have open minds about politics and money?” She went on in a worried voice:  “I knew he was like this when I met him at Harvard.  He was living in his own house, aloof from the poorer men—­the men who were most worth while, it seemed to me.  And when I told him of the bad effect he was having on these men and on his own character as well, he said he would do whatever I asked—­he even gave up his house and went to live in a dormitory.  So I thought I had some influence on him.  But now, here is the same thing again, only I find that one can’t take a stand against one’s husband.  At least, he doesn’t admit the right.”  She hesitated.  “It doesn’t seem loyal to talk about it.”

“My dear girl,” I said with an impulse of candour, “there isn’t much you can tell me about that problem.  My own marriage went to pieces on that rock.”

I saw a look of surprise upon her face.  “I haven’t told you my story yet,” I said.  “Some day I will—­when you feel you know me well enough for us to exchange confidences.”