Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/339

Rh —when you know I’ve never even looked at another man!”

“Another man?” Amherst looked at her in wonder. “Good God! Can’t you conceive of any vow to be kept between husband and wife but the primitive one of bodily ﬁdelity? Heaven knows I’ve never looked at another woman—but, by my reading of our compact, I shouldn’t be keeping faith with you if I didn’t help you to keep faith with better things. And you owe me the same help—the same chance to rise through you, and not sink by you—else we’ve betrayed each other more deeply than any adultery could make us!”

She had drawn back, turning pale again, and shrinking a little at the sound of words which, except when heard in church, she vaguely associated with oaths, slammed doors, and other evidences of ill—breeding; but Amherst had been swept too far on the ﬂood of his indignation to be checked by such small signs of disapproval.

“You’ll say that what I’m asking you is to give me back the free use of your money. Well! Why not? Is it so much for a wife to give? I know you all think that a man who marries a rich woman forfeits his self-respect if he spends a penny without her approval. But that’s because money is so sacred to you all! It seems to me the least important thing that a woman entrusts to her husband. What of her dreams and her hopes, [ 323 ]