_had_ made
out. Think of knowing exactly what she's going to do before she does it,
and anticipating all her conversation!"

"Think," said he, "of living with a woman and never knowing precisely
whether she's your wife or not your wife."

"But it solves all the matrimonial problems--how to be the exemplary
father of a family and yet to slip the noose and be a bachelor
again--how to break the seventh commandment----"

"Jinny!"

"The seventh commandment and yet be faithful to your marriage vows--how
to obtain all the excitement of polygamy, all the relief of the divorce
court without the bother and the scandal and the expense. Why can't you
look at it in that light?"

"Perhaps, Jinny, because I'm not polygamous."

"You never know what you are until you're tried. Supposing you'd married
Gertrude--you'd have had Gertrude, all there is of Gertrude, always
Gertrude, and nothing but Gertrude. Could you have stood it?"

"Probably."

"You couldn't. Before you'd been married to Gertrude six months you'd
have gone, howling, to the devil. Whereas with me you've got your devil
at home."

His smile admitted that there was truth in what she said. She had
appealed to the adventurous and lawless spirit in him, the spirit that
marked his difference from his family.

She went on with her air of reasonableness and wisdom. "I am really,
though you mayn't know it, the thing you need."

He saw his advantage in her mood.

"And _you_, Jinny? Don't you know that you're happiest like this?"

"Yes. I know it."

"And that when you're working like ten horses you're in misery half the
time?"

"In torture." She agreed.

"And don't you know that it makes little lines come, little lines of
agony on your forehead, Jinny, and purple patches under your dear eyes;
and your mouth hardens."

"I know," she moaned. "I know it does. And you don't love me when I look
like that?"

"I love you whatever you look like, and you know it. I love you even
when you wander."

"Even? Do you mind so very much--my wandering?"

"Sometimes, perhaps, a little."

"You didn't mind at all before you married me."

"I didn't realize it then."

"Didn't realize what?"

"Your genius, Jinny, and the things it does to you."

"But you did--you did--you knew all about it."

"I knew what it meant to me."

"What _did_ it mean--to you?"

He appeared to plunge into deep memories before he answered her.

"To me it was simply _the_ supreme intellectual in