the Club. You don't know how much I feel inclined sometimes to invite
some woman here that I like, and that I know you don't; to go and see the
people that I want to see, to go to bed when _I_ am tired, and to get up
when _I_ feel I want to get up. Two people living together are bound
both to be continually sacrificing their own desires to the other one. It
is sometimes a good thing to slacken the strain a bit."

On thinking over Ethelbertha's words afterwards, have come to see their
wisdom; but at the time I admit I was hurt and indignant.

"If your desire," I said, "is to get rid of me--"

"Now, don't be an old goose," said Ethelbertha; "I only want to get rid
of you for a little while, just long enough to forget there are one or
two corners about you that are not perfect, just long enough to let me
remember what a dear fellow you are in other respects, and to look
forward to your return, as I used to look forward to your coming in the
old days when I did not see you so often as to become, perhaps, a little
indifferent to you, as one grows indifferent to the glory of the sun,
just because he is there every day."

I did not like the tone that Ethelbertha took. There seemed to be a
frivolity about her, unsuited to the theme into which we had drifted.
That a woman should contemplate cheerfully an absence of three or four
weeks from her husband appeared to me to be not altogether nice, not what
I call womanly; it was not like Ethelbertha at all. I was worried, I
felt I didn't want to go this trip at all. If it had not been for George
and Harris, I would have abandoned it. As it was, I could not see how to
change my mind with dignity.