It had become worse lately; he had difficulty in putting her from his mind; he imagined Emmy in conjunction with the bakery, of her slowly starving and the thousands of loaves he produced in a day. There was something unnatural in such a situation; it was like a mockery at him.
A vision of her came to him at the most inopportune moments, lingering until it drove him into a hot rage and a pounding set up at the back of his neck.
The meat was brought back, and he had more of a sweet boiled huckleberry pudding. A salad followed, with a heavy Russian dressing. August Turnbull's breathing grew thicker, he was conscious of a familiar oppression. He assaulted it with fresh wine.
"I saw Bernard on the beach," he related; "Victorine is sick once more. Chocolate sundaes, Bernard said. She is always stuffing herself at soda-water counters or with candy. They oughtn't to allow it; the child should be made to eat at the table. When she is here she touches nothing but the dessert. When I was ten I ate everything or not at all. But there is no longer any discipline, not only with children but everywhere."
"There is a little freedom, though," Rosalie suggested.
His manner clearly showed displeasure, almost contempt, and he turned to Miss Beggs. "What do you think?" he demanded. "I understand you have been a school-teacher."
"Oh, you are quite right," she responded; "at least about children, and it is clear from them that most parents are idiotically lax." A blaze of discontent, loathing, surprisingly invaded her pallid face.
The contrast between his wife and Miss Beggs recurred, intensified--one an absolute wreck and the other as solidly slender as a birch tree. Fate had played a disgusting trick on him. In the prime of his life he was tied to a hopeless invalid. It put an unfair tension on him. Women were charming, gracious--or else they were nothing. If Emmy's money had been an assistance at first he had speedily justified its absorption in the business. She owed him, her husband, everything possible. He suddenly pictured mountains of bread, bread towering up into the clouds, fragrant and appetizing; and Emmy, a thing of bones, gazing wistfully at it. August Turnbull, with a feeling like panic, brushed the picture from his mind.