Doesn't
it get any better? One bit easier?"
"No!"--that would have no denying; and then: "Oh but I'm the brute to
talk to you like this, after you've been"--again he swept her into his
arms--"what you have been to me this summer."
She guided him to a chair and knelt beside him. She held his hand for a
minute as the mother holds the hand of the child in pain. And then she
began, her voice tender, but quietly determined: "Karl dear--let's be
honest. Let's not do so much pretending with each other. For just this
once let's look it right in the face. I want to understand--oh how I want
to! What's the very worst of it, dear? Is it--the work?"
"Yes!"--the word leaped out as though let loose from a long bondage.
"Ernestine--no one but a man can quite see that. What _is_ a man without
a man's work? What is there for him to do but sit around in namby-pamby
fashion and be fussed over and coddled and cheered up! Lord"--he threw
away her hands and turned his face from her--"I'd rather be dead!"
Her utter silence recalled him to a sense of how she must be hurt.
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