ople would really try--"

"Good heavens! I said that of _business_ conditions!" shouted Paul,
outraged at being so misquoted.

"Well, if it's true of them--No; I feel that things are the way they are
because we don't really care enough to have them some other way. If you
really cared as much about sharing a part of your life with me--really
sharing--as you do about getting the Washburn contract--"

Her indignant and angry tone, so entirely unusual, moved Paul, more than
her words, to shocked protest. He looked deeply wounded, and his accent
was that of a man righteously aggrieved. "Lydia, I lay most of this
absurd outbreak to your nervous condition, and so I can't blame you for
it. But I can't help pointing out to you that it is entirely uncalled
for. There are few women who have a husband as absolutely devoted as
yours. You grumble about my not sharing my life with you--why, I _give_
it to you entire!" His astonished bitterness grew as he voiced it. "What
am I working so hard for if not to provide for you and our child--our
children! Good Heavens! What more _can_ I do for you than to keep my
nose on the grindstone every minute. There are limits to even a
husband's time and endurance and capacity for work."

Lydia heard a frightened roaring in her ears at this unexpected turn to
the conversation. Paul had never spoken so to her before. This was a
very different tone from his irritation over defective housekeeping. She
was as horrified as he over the picture that he held up with such
apparently justified indignation, the picture of her as a querulous and
ungrateful wife. Why, Paul was looking at her as though he hated her!
For the first time in her married life, she conceived the possibility
that she and Paul might quarrel, really seriously quarrel, about
fundamental things. The idea terrified her beyond words. Her mind,
undisciplined and never very clear, became quite confused, and only her
long preparation and expectation of this talk enabled her to keep on at
all, although now she could but falter ahead blindly. "Why, Paul
dear--don't look at me so! I never dreamed of _blaming_ you for it! It's
just because I want things better for you that I'm so anxious to--"

"You haven't noticed me complaining any, have you?" put in Paul grimly,
still looking at her coldly.

"--It's because I can't bear to see you work so hard to get me things
I'd ever so much rather go without than have you grow so you can't see
anything bu