“I don’t want to be shielded,” she said, quickly; “at least, not _always_.”
And she beat back her emotion, looking away, with trembling lip.
He stood, uncertain, gazing at her, and his eyes grew half-reproachful.
“Oh, of course, you don’t understand!” she exclaimed, unwillingly reading his thoughts. “You have married a plaything, Otto. You cannot comprehend my wanting to be a wife.”
[Illustration: “‘OH, THEY ARE ALL THAT,’ CRIED OTTO, FACING ROUND”]
He too constantly called her that. She detested the name. She knew well enough how much he was her elder.
“I am not a child,” she cried, passionately. “I am a woman, and your wife.”
“Yes,” he replied, sternly, reading discontent in her pent-up vehemence, and perhaps a little assumption; “you are now the Baroness van Helmont.”
“I am not. I am not!” she cried, recklessly, and dropped her work in her agitation. “I mean I am not that only. I am sick of merely being that. I am your wife, Otto. I have a right to be recognized as such.”
Otto paced down the large room and up again.
“I am sorry,” he said, stiffly, “that you consider yourself slighted by any one, but I cannot ask my mother to leave the house. There are difficulties, of course, in your position. I am the first to admit them. We all have difficulties. Often they are unavoidable. Yours seem so to me.”
She looked at him, her brown eyes dilated with horror; then suddenly, very sweetly, her tenderness flowed across them.
“Oh, Otto,” she said, softly, “why do we so constantly misunderstand each other? It is you by whom I want to be recognized as your wife--nobody else!”
Then he caught her to his breast, and kissed her seriously, as they kiss who love deeply, but apart.
“I want to take my share of your work,” she continued, caressingly, “and, especially, my share of your worry. I am so tired, Otto, of sitting in the big drawing-room. To you, at _least_, I want not to be ‘My Lady Nobody.’ I didn’t marry you for that.”
“What did you marry me for,” he questioned, playfully.
“Certainly not for that,” she replied, gravely, and the answer fell cold on his heart, for all that it left unsaid. A moment afterwards she added, “Of course, because I love you.” She thoughtfully spoke her conscientious verity; but love is quicker than thought.