Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/360

350 want all the good things for themselves, all their pursuits to have few rivals, and the women to stay at home and make them comfortable when they are tired of their ambitions outside."

"It isn't that they are selfish. I think"—he rose to his feet, looking around—"it's that they are so helpless without women to look after them. I am strong enough to work hard with my hands and brain all day, yet when it comes to making a home—there's something terribly wrong here"—he waved his hands as though to take in the little room—"and I don't know what it is or what to do—but I hate it!"

"It's the dust and the remains of lunch, I think," she answered; and, with a sudden rush of foolish feminity, longed to sweep and tidy. "Did you sew that button on yourself?" She was staring at his coat, where a loose button hung by a white thread.

"A man is as helpless with a needle as a woman with a gun." He smiled at her, but she had risen and was going round the room.

"The poor thing!" she laughed softly with tears in her eyes. She had come upon a sock