Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/440

62 In anger, one day, he taunted her with it. She replied, without passion, but with cutting coldness, that it was not good for business to have one's husband sitting around the office; that women did not come in so readily, feeling afraid that something might be overheard and repeated.

"You have a young gentleman typewriter," sneered Mr. Dawson.

"That is different," said his wife, smiling good-naturedly.

So the two years had gone by. Some things had improved; others had grown worse. Ill health and the narrow world he moved in seemed to have affected Mr. Dawson's mind. He felt that his wife neglected him. At times he was proud of her brilliant success, financial and political; her popularity, her beauty and grace. At others he was violently jealous of—everything and everybody, even the young man who musically took down her thoughts in the office.

It was absurd, of course, but he was such a beastly good-looking young fool! What business had he to put fresh flowers in her vase every day? Mr. Dawson asked her once furiously if she paid him for that. She looked at him in cold displeasure. Then she left the house, and scarcely spoke to him for a week. At the end of the week she remembered his invalidism, and relented. On the way home she bought a pretty trifle, a jeweled scarf-pin, and gave it to him with a little show of affection. He was deeply touched. Then she really loved him, after all!

Thereafter she permitted herself to become angry with him more readily. The temporary estrangement furnished a reasonable excuse to spend several nights down town with the girls; and, when she was tired of it, she had only to carry home some pretty jewel—and peace was restored. Mr. Dawson's life was becoming such a narrow, walled-in one that he was losing his spirit.

It is not surprising that Mrs. Dawson looked at him angrily over the breakfast-table. However, she made no answer to his unreasonable complaint.

"Is it necessary that you should make so many trips to Salem?" he asked, presently.

"Yes, my dear," she replied, coldly. "Unless you wish to see me defeated."

"And is it necessary that you should remain out until one or two o'clock every night?"

"It is." Mrs. Dawson spoke firmly to convince herself as well as her husband. "My dear, I have had enough of this. You were pleased—I repeat, pleased—with the idea of my running for senator, or I should not have accepted the nomination. Now, already, you annoy me with petty complaints and jealousies. I prefer being at home with you and the children, certainly; but I cannot neglect my business, or we should soon be in the poor-house. Nor can I make anything of a canvass without spending some time with the girls."

"And money," sneered Mr. Dawson.

"Yes, and money"—more coldly. "God knows I do not enjoy it; my tastes are domestic."

Mr. Dawson got up suddenly. He lifted his chair, and set it down with a crash.

"Mrs. Dawson," he said, "I don't care whether you make a good canvass or a poor one. When I gave my consent to our going into this thing, I supposed you'd run it differently. You women have been talking and ranting for the last fifty years about the way you'd purify politics when you got the ballot—and here you are