She got up suddenly from the sofa, and pushed away her hair from her
face, and pushed away the tears from her cheeks, and then clenched
her fists as she held them out at full length from her body, and
stood, looking up with her eyes fixed upon the wall. "Ass!" she
exclaimed. "Fool! Idiot! That I should not be able to crush it into
nothing and have done with it! Why should he not have her? After all,
he is better than Oswald. Oh,--is that you?" The door of the room had
been opened while she was standing thus, and her husband had entered.
"Yes,--it is I. Is anything wrong?"
"Very much is wrong."
"What is it, Laura?"
"You cannot help me."
"If you are in trouble you should tell me what it is, and leave it to
me to try to help you."
"Nonsense!" she said, shaking her head.
"Laura, that is uncourteous,--not to say undutiful also."
"I suppose it was,--both. I beg your pardon, but I could not help
it."
"Laura, you should help such words to me."
"There are moments, Robert, when even a married woman must be
herself rather than her husband's wife. It is so, though you cannot
understand it."
"I certainly do not understand it."
"You cannot make a woman subject to you as a dog is so. You may have
all the outside and as much of the inside as you can master.
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