She left the shelter of the piano with
dragging feet, her own face drained of its color. Ben Travers! She
knew what was coming.
His arms lay limply along the arms of his chair. As she gazed at him
fascinated it seemed to her that he grew older every minute. And she
had never seen any one look as sad.
"I have been a bad husband to you," he said. And the life had gone
out of even his voice.
"Oh! No! No! you have been the best, the kindest and most indulgent
of husbands."
"I have been worse than a bad husband," he went on in the same
monotonous voice. "I have been a failure. I never tried to understand
you. I didn't want to understand what might interfere with my own
selfish life. You have a mind and I ordered you to feed it husks. You
asked me for the companionship that was your right and I told you to
go and amuse yourself as best you could. I fooled myself with the
excuse that you were perfect as you were, but the bald truth was that
I liked the society of men better, and hated any form of mental
exertion unconnected with my profession. I plucked the rarest flower
a good-for-nothing man ever found and I didn't even remember to give
it fresh water. It is a wonder you didn't wilt before you did. You
were wilting--dying mentally--when Masters came along.
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