And she had a common accent in her speech. He outdid her a
thousand times in coarse language, and yet that cold twang in her voice
tortured him with shame that he stamped down in bullying and in becoming
more violent in his own speech.
Only his dogs adored him, and to them, and to his pigeons, he talked with
rough, yet curiously tender caresses while they leaped and fluttered for
joy.
After he and his wife had been married for seven years a little girl was
born to them, then later, another. But the husband and wife drew no
nearer together. She had an affection for her children almost like a cool
governess. He had an emotional man's fear of sentiment, which helped to
nip his wife from putting out any shoots. He treated his children
roughly, and pretended to think it a good job when one was adopted by a
well-to-do maternal aunt. But in his soul he hated his wife that she
could give away one of his children. For after her cool fashion, she
loved him. With a chaos of a man such as he, she had no chance of being
anything but cold and hard, poor thing. For she did love him.
In the end he fell absurdly and violently in love with a rather
sentimental young woman who read Browning. He made his wife an allowance
and established a new menage with the young lady, shortly after
emigrating with her to Australia. Meanwhile his wife had gone to live
with a publican, a widower, with whom she had had one of those curious,
tacit understandings of which quiet women are capable, something like an
arrangement for provision in the future.
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