But she thought she understood him and was deceived by his
self-deceiving conviction that his work was her service and that the
highest proof of his devotion to her was devotion to "our" career. Thus
there was no bitterness or reproach of him, rarely much intensity, in her
regret that they were together so little.
"Good morning, stranger!" she said, as he came into the dining room one day
in early June.
He kissed her hand and then the "topknot" as he called the point into which
her hair was gathered at the crown of her head. "It has been four days
since I saw you," he said. And he sat opposite her looking at her with an
expression of sadness which she had not seen since the first days of their
acquaintance.
"I have missed you--you know," she was trying to look cheerful, "but I
understand--"
"Yes," he interrupted. "You understand what I intend, understand that I
mean my life to be for _us_. But sometimes--this morning--I think I am
mistaken. It seems to me that I am letting this--" he threw his hand
contemptuously toward the heap of morning newspapers beside him, "this
trash comes between us. You are my real career, not these, and under the
pretense of working for us I am spending my whole life, my one life, my one
chance to help to make us happy, upon these.
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