success in failure.

The reality of their marriage could not have been saved. But they had
the children; and to the children was restored much of what their
father had largely spoiled in the first place, and she nearly
forfeited in the second. For the fact was that Sam did better; the
despot is always a moral coward, and always something of the slave to
a master. Moreover, her growing invulnerability to hurt through him
set, in large measure, the attitude of the household; everybody was
more comfortable. She discounted his opinions and complaints; but, in
considering the welfare of the greatest number, she sacrificed as
little as possible his individual comforts. His interests she studied.
And for the rest, she let him go his way and went hers.

Life is a perfect equation: if something is added or subtracted,
something is subtracted or added, so long as there _is_ life.
Judith got her poise again in time, as strong natures do after any
death; with some fibres weakened past mending, gray, but calm. If his
side of her nature was stunted, she seemed to blossom all the more
richly in other ways. She loved her children in proportion as she had
suffered and worked for them. After her domestic years, like so many
women, she took fresh start, physically and mentally. Her executive
ability found public outlet. She could admit friends again. Freedom
from the corrosion of antagonism was happiness. Without the struggle
to keep that love which must ask so much of its object, she could give
Sam more of that altruism which asks nothing.