"It must, must, must be _our_ work."
Howard was, as she had told him, acutely sensitive to her moods. He did not
formulate it to himself but simply obeyed an instinct which defined for him
the limits of her interest. Before they had been at Lakewood a month, he
was working alone without any expectation of sympathy or interest from her
and without the slightest sense of loss in not getting it. Why should he
miss that which he had never had, had never counted upon getting? He had
always been mentally alone, most alone in the plans and actions bearing
directly upon his own career. He was perfectly content to have her as the
companion of his leisure.
Possibly, if he had been insistent, or if they had been in real sympathy
instead of in only surface sympathy in most respects, she might have become
interested in his work, might have impelled him to right development. But
her distaste and inertia and his habit of debating and deciding questions
as to the paper in his own mind, the fear of boring her, the dread of
intruding upon her rights to her own individual tastes and feelings,
restrained him without his having a sense of restraint.
When, after two months, they went up to town to stay, their course of life
was settled, though Marian was protesting that it was not and Howard was
unconscious of there having been any settlement, or anything to settle.
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