"In my
uncle's case," he would grumble in the darkness, "one phase of the
selfishness is obvious. He couldn't even get himself originally, I
suppose, to face the inevitable matter-of-fact moments of marriage.
It began when he was middle-aged, a bachelor--I suppose he wants the
sort of Don Juan, eighteen-eighty, perpetual sort of romance that
doesn't exist outside the brains of himself and his like....
Camellias!"
Usually he tried to stir up argument with his wife, who in these
matters agreed with him utterly; even more than agreed with him,
since she was the escaped daughter of rich and stodgy people, and
had insisted upon earning her own living by portrait-painting.
Theoretically, therefore, she was, of course, an anarchist. But at
moments like the present her silent assent and the aura of slight
weariness over an ancient subject which emanated from her in the dusk,
affronted Adrian as much as positive opposition.
"Why don't you try to understand me?"
"I do, dearest!"--a pathetic attempt at eager agreement.
"Well, then, if you do, why is the tone of your voice like that? You
know by now what I think. I'm not talking convention; I believe
there are no laws higher than the love of a man for a woman.
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