"Why should it disturb you?"
Irene did not answer.
"I can tell you."
"Say on."
"You are in bonds, and feel the fetters."
"Mrs. Talbot!"
"It is so, my poor child, and you know it as well as I do. From the beginning of our acquaintance I have seen this; and more than once, in our various conversations, you have admitted the fact."
"I?"
"Yes, you."
Irene let her thoughts run back through the sentiments and opinions which she had permitted herself to utter in the presence of her friend, to see if she had so fully betrayed herself. She could not recall the distinct language, but it was plain that Mrs. Talbot had her secret, and therefore reserve on the subject was useless.
"Well," she said, after standing for some time before Mrs. Talbot, "if I am in bonds, it is not because I do not worship freedom."
"I know that," was the quickly-spoken answer. "And it is because I wish to see you a free woman that I point to your bonds. Now is the time to break them--now, before years have increased their strength--now, before habit has made tyranny a part of your husband"s nature. He is your ruler, because the social sentiment is in favor of manly domination. There is hope for you now, and now only. You must begin the work of reaction while both are young. Let your husband understand, from this time, that you are his equal. It may go a little hard at first. He will, without doubt, hold on to the reins, for power is sweet; but if there be true love for you in his heart, he will yield in the struggle, and make you his companion and equal, as you should be. If his love be not genuine, why--"
She checked herself. It might be going a step too far with her young friend to utter the thought that was coming to her lips. Irene did not question her as to what more she was about to say. There was stimulus enough in the words already spoken. She felt all the strength of her nature rising into opposition.
"Yes, I will be free," she said in her heart. "I will be his equal, not his slave."
"It may cost you some pain in the beginning," resumed the tempter.
"I am not afraid of pain," said Irene.
"A brave heart spoke there. I wish we had more on our side with the stuff you are made of. There would be hope of a speedier reform than is now promised."
"Heaven send the reform right early! It cannot come a day too soon."
Irene spoke with rising ardor.
"It will be our own fault," said Mrs. Talbot, "if we longer bow our necks to the yoke or move obedient to our task-masters. Let us lay the axe to the very root of this evil and hew it down."
"Even if we are crushed by the tree in falling," responded Irene, in the spirit of a martyr.
From this interview our wrong-directed young friend went home with more clearly defined purposes touching her conduct toward her husband than she had hitherto entertained. She saw him in a new aspect, and in a character more definitely outlined. He loomed up in more colossal proportions, and put on sterner features. All disguises were thrown away, and he stood forth, not a loving husband, but the tyrant of her home. Weak, jealous, pa.s.sion-tost child! how this strong, self-willed, false woman of the world had bewildered her thoughts, and pushed her forth into an arena of strife, where she could only beat about blindly, and hurt herself and others, yet accomplish no good.
From her interview with Mrs. Talbot, Irene went home, bearing more distinct ideas of resistance in her mind. In this great crisis of her life she felt that she needed just such a friend, who could give direction to her striving spirit, and clothe for her in thoughts the native impulses that she knew only as a love of freedom. She believed now that she understood herself better than before, and comprehended more clearly her duties and responsibilities.
It was in this mood of mind that she met her husband when he returned in the afternoon from his office. Happily for them, he was in a quiet, non-resistant state, and in a special good-humor with himself and the world. Professional matters had shaped themselves to his wishes, and left his mind at peace. Irene had, in consequence, everything pretty much her own way. Hartley did not fail to notice a certain sharpness of manner about her, and a certain spiciness of sentiment when the subject of their intermittent talks verged on themes relating to women; but he felt no inclination whatever for argument or opposition, and so her arrows struck a polished shield, and went gracefully and harmlessly aside.
"Shall we go and have a merry laugh with Matthews to-night?" said Hartley, as they sat at the tea-table. "I feel just in the humor."
"No, I thank you," replied Irene, curtly. "I don"t incline to the laughing mood, just now."
"Laughing is contagious," suggested Hartley.
"I shall not take the infection to-night." And she balanced her little head with the perpendicularity of a plumb-line.
"Can"t I persuade you?" He was in a real good-humor, and smiled as he said this.
"No, sir. You may waive both argument and persuasion. I am in earnest."
"And when a woman is in earnest you might as well essay to move the Pillars of Hercules."
"You might as well in my case," answered Irene, without any softening of tone or features.
"Then I shall not attempt, after a hard day"s work, a task so difficult. I am in a mood for rest and quiet," said the young husband.
"Perhaps," he resumed, after a little pause, "you may feel somewhat musical. There is to be a vocal and instrumental concert to-night.
What say you to going there? I think I could enjoy some good singing, mightily."
Irene closed her lips firmly, and shook her head.
"Not musically inclined this evening?"
"No," she replied.
"Got a regular stay-at-home feeling?"
"Yes."
"Enough," said Hartley, with unshadowed good-humor, "we will stay at home."
And he sung a s.n.a.t.c.h of the familiar song--"There"s no place like home," rising, as he did so, from the table, and offering Irene his arm. She could do no less than accept the courtesy, and so they went up to their cozy sitting-room arm-in-arm--he chatty, and she almost silent.
"What"s the matter, petty?" he asked, in a fond way, after trying for some time, but in vain, to draw her out into pleasant conversation. "Ain"t you well to-night?"
Now, so far as her bodily state was concerned, Irene never felt better in her life. So she could not plead indisposition.
"I feel well," she replied, glancing up into her husband"s face in a cold, embarra.s.sed kind of way.
"Then your looks belie your condition--that"s all. If it isn"t the body, it must be the mind. What"s gone wrong, darling?"
The tenderness in Hartley"s tones was genuine, and the heart of Irene leaped to his voice with a responsive throe. But was he not her master and tyrant? How that thought chilled the sweet impulse!
"Nothing wrong," she answered, with a sadness of tone which she was unable to conceal. "But I feel dull, and cannot help it."
"You should have gone with me to laugh with Matthews. He would have shaken all these cobwebs from your brain. Come! it is not yet too late."
But the rebel spirit was in her heart; and to have acceded to he husband"s wishes would have been to submit herself to control.
"You must excuse me," she replied. "I feel as if home were the better place for me to-night."