is the American way. I am your husband still,
and while I live you shall have my money and my protection. But I have
ceased to be your lover, though my heart is broken."

"Very well," said Selma, after a painful pause. "But you know, Wilbur,"
she added in a tone of eager protestation, "that I do not admit for a
moment that I am at fault. I was simply trying to help you. You have
only yourself to blame for your unhappiness and--and for mine. I hope
you understand that."

"Yes, I understand that you think so," he said sadly.

CHAPTER IX.

The breach between Littleton and his wife was too serious to be healed,
for he was confronted by the conviction that Selma was a very different
being from the woman whom he had supposed that he was marrying. He had
been slow to harbor distrust, and loath, even in the face of her own
words, to admit that he had misinterpreted her character; but this last
conversation left no room for doubt. Selma had declared to him,
unequivocally, that his ideas and theory of life were repugnant to her,
and that, henceforth, she intended to act independently of them, so far
as she could do so, and yet maintain the semblance of the married state.
It was a cruel shock and disappointment to him. At the time of his
marriage he would have said that the least likely of possible happenings
would be self-deception as to the character of the woman he loved. Yet
this was precisely what had befallen him.

Having realized his mistake, he did not seek to flinch from the bitter
truth. He saw clearly that their future relations toward each other must
be largely formal; that tender comradeship and mutual soul alliance were
at an end. At the same time his simple, direct conscience promptly
indicated to him that it was his duty to recognize Selma's point of view
and endeavor to satisfy it as far as he could without sacrifice of his
own principles. He chose to remember that she, too, had made a mistake,
and that he was not the kind of husband whom she desired; that his
tastes were not her tastes, nor his ambitions her's; that she had tastes
and ambitions of her own which he, as the man to whom she was bound by
the law, must not disregard. Thus reasoning, he resolved to carry out
the scheme of life which she appeared to despise, but also to work hard
to provide her with the means to fulfil her own aims. She craved money
for social advancement. She should have it from him, for there was no
other source from which