This Man's Wife. Fenn George Manville

course I am. Where do you suppose I’m going?”

      “I only thought, dear, that – ”

      “Then don’t only think for the sake of saying foolish things.”

      She laid her other hand upon his arm, and smiled in his face.

      “Don’t let these money matters trouble you so, Robert,” she said. “What does it matter whether we are rich or poor?”

      “Oh, not in the least!” he cried sarcastically. “You don’t want any money, of course?”

      “I do, dear, terribly,” she said sadly. “I have been asked a great deal lately for payments of bills; and if you could let me have some this morning – ”

      “Then I cannot; it’s impossible. There, wait a few days and the crisis will be over, and you can clear off.”

      “And you will not speculate again, dear?” she said eagerly.

      “Oh, no, of course not,” he rejoined, with the touch of sarcasm in his voice.

      “We should be so much happier, dear, on your salary. I would make it plenty for us; and then, Robert, you would be so much more at peace.”

      “How can I be at peace?” he cried savagely, “when, just as I am harassed with monetary cares – which you cannot understand – I find my home, instead of a place of rest, a place of torment?”

      “Robert!” she said, in a tone of tender reproach.

      “People here I don’t want to see; servants pestering me for money, when I have given you ample for our household expenses; and my own child set against me, ready to shrink from me, and look upon me as some domestic ogre!”

      “Robert, dear, pray do not talk like this.”

      “I am driven to it,” he cried fiercely; “the child detests me!”

      “Oh no, no, no,” she whispered, placing her arm round his neck.

      “And rushes to that fellow Bayle as if she had been taught to look upon him as everybody.”

      “Nay, nay,” she said softly; and there was a tender smile upon her lip, a look of loving pity in her eye. “Julie likes Mr Bayle, for he pets her, and plays with her as if he were her companion.”

      “And I am shunned.”

      “Oh, no, dear, you frighten poor Julie sometimes when you are in one of your stern, thoughtful moods.”

      “My stern, thoughtful moods! Pshaw!”

      “Yes,” she said tenderly; “your stern, thoughtful moods. The child cannot understand them as I do, dear husband. She thinks of sunshine and play. How can she read the depth of the father’s love – of the man who is so foolishly ambitious to win fortune for his child? Robert – husband – my own, would it not be better to set all these strivings for wealth aside, and go back to the simple, peaceful days again?”

      “You do not understand these things,” he said harshly. “There, let me go. I ought to have been at the bank an hour ago, but I could not get a wink of sleep all the early part of the night.”

      “I know, dear. It was three o’clock when you went to sleep.”

      “How did you know?”

      “The clock struck when you dropped off, dear. I did not speak for fear of waking you.”

      She did not add that she, too, had been kept awake about money matters, and wondering whether her husband would consent to live in a more simple style in a smaller house.

      “There, good-bye,” he said, kissing her. “It is all coming right. Don’t talk to your father or mother about my affairs.”