He had seen
women trained to give in to anything rather than be bullied in public,
to accede in the end to any demand rather than endure the shame of
a certain kind of scene made before servants, and a certain kind of
insolence used to relatives and guests. The quality he found
most maddeningly irritating in Rosalie was her obviously absolute
unconsciousness of the fact that it was entirely natural and proper that
her resources should be in her husband's hands. He had, indeed, even
in these early days, made a tentative effort or so in the form of a
suggestive speech; he had given her openings to give him an opening to
put things on a practical basis, but she had never had the intelligence
to see what he was aiming at, and he had found himself almost
floundering ungracefully in his remarks, while she had looked at him
without a sign of comprehension in her simple, anxious blue eyes. The
creature was actually trying to understand him and could not. That was
the worst of it, the blank wall of her unconsciousness, her childlike
belief that he was far too grand a personage to require anything. These
were the things he was thinking over when he walked up and down the deck
in unamiable solitariness.
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