He never had a more horrid shock than when one day she proved the reality of her indifference, terribly proved it, by speaking contemplatively of devoting her money to the cause of Russian freedom, and of making her own living by teaching. "It seems to me that one would face life more directly--more truly--like that," remarked Miss Grey.
He controlled the demonstration of his dismay and for several days argued with her on the duties of even such small wealth as hers, its responsibilities and opportunities. He always impressed Miss Grey; she was the least arrogant of beings, and in spite of her steady seeing of life, took people exactly at their own valuation. She, too, thought Mr. Merrick very "cultivated and high-minded"; she equipped him further with a "great soul," and, unconsciously to her maiden heart, thought him, too, very beautiful in his wise persuasiveness.
He persuaded her that a larger, richer, more helpful life was to be lived with money than without it, and, a few days later, that that life should be lived with him.
So Miss Grey went to England as Mrs. Austin Merrick, and she and her husband built the Greek temple on the bit of hill-top land that came to Austin through his mother, and in the Greek temple, under the rather pinched conditions that its erection left them in, Mrs. Austin passed fourteen very perplexed, helpless, and unhappy years.
She never recovered from the perplexity. Trying always to see great meanings, only small ones met her eyes. Not only was the mollusc-like routine of the life about her bewildering, for it was a dull country-side, but her husband's character. She never doubted the great soul, but she never seemed clearly to see it. He was loving and devoted; he thought her perfect, as he thought all his possessions; she did not know that it was her echo of his imaginary self that he prized, that she was the living surety of his own worth, never felt that the key-note of his character was an agile vanity that sprang to defend him from any attack that might mean self-revelation. He was always clever enough to see her worth, but not clever enough to see that her intelligence grew blurred and groping when it turned its light upon the objects of her affection.