they seem to unite them in one care, but they divide them in their
employments, at least in the normally constituted family. If they are
rich, and can throw the care of the children upon servants, then they
cannot enjoy the relief from each other that children bring to the mother
who nurtures and teaches them, and to the father who must work for them
harder than before. The Alderlings were not rich enough to have been
freed from the wholesome responsibilities of parentage, but they were
childless, and so they were not detached from the perpetual thought of
each other. If they had only had different tastes, it might have been
better, but they were both artists, she not less than he, though she no
longer painted. When their common thoughts were not centred upon each
other's being, they were centred on his work, which, viciously enough,
was the constant reproduction of her visible personality. I could always
see them studying each other, he with an eye to her beauty, she with an
eye to his power.

He was every now and then saying to her, "Hold on, Marion," and staying
her in some pose or movement, while he made mental note of it, and I was
conscious of her preying upon his inmost thoughts and following him into
the recesses of his reveries, where it is best for a man to be alone,
even if he is sometimes a beast there. She was not like those wives who
ask their husbands, when they do not happen to be talking, "What are you
thinking about?" and I put this to her credit, till I realized that she
had no need to ask, for she knew already. Now and then I saw him get up
and shake himself restively, but I am bound to say in her behalf, that
her pursuit of him seemed quite involuntary, and that she enjoyed it no
more than he did. Twenty times I was on the point of asking, "Why don't
you people go in for a good long separation? Is there nothing to call you
to Europe, Alderling? Haven't you got a mother, or sister, or some one
that you could visit, Mrs. Alderling? It would do you both a world of