"
"Well, I'll wait and see," said Maud; "but what I was going to say
was that you seem to me different--hardly the person I married. I
used to wonder a little at first how I had had the impudence . . .
and then I used to think that perhaps some day you would wake up,
and find you had come to the bottom of the well, but you never
seemed disappointed."
"Disappointed!" said Howard; "what terrible rubbish! Why Maud,
don't you KNOW what you have done for me? You have put the whole
thing straight. It's just that. I was full of vanities and thoughts
and bits of knowledge, and I really think I thought them important--
they ARE important too, like food and drink--one must have them--
at least men must--but they don't matter; at least it doesn't
matter what they are. Men have always to be making and doing
things--business, money, positions, duties; but the point is to
know that they are unimportant, and yet to go on doing them as if
they mattered--one must do that--seriously and not solemnly; but
you have somehow put all that in the right place; and I know now
what matters and what does not. There, do you call that nothing?"
"Perhaps we have found it out together," said Maud; "the only
difference is that you have the courage to tell me that you were
wrong, while I have never even dared to tell you what a hollow sham
I am, and what a mean and peevish child I was before you came on
the scene."
"Well, we won't look into your dark past," said Howard.
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