human
I used to avoid the place, he said,
gpt
I have often wished to speak to you about my wife, he said slowly, as they sat down on the old seat, on the terrace.
human
I have felt that you would understand the whole sad story, and I hoped that some day you would know it. He paused and then added,
gpt
It has often been a comfort to me to remember that you were in the world, for it made me feel less lonely. I felt in you some new--what can I call it? instinct, impulse, inspiration, which ran you straight against all the hardest stone walls that intersect the pathways of this ridiculous old world. And, strange to say, it is the very element in you that sets you at loggerheads with others, that enabled me to understand you.
human
To tell you the truth, I have always wondered why women have never felt as I am sure you feel towards life. You remember that day at Dunaghee when you were so annoyed at my guessing your thoughts. They were unmistakeable to one who shared them. Your sex has always been a riddle to me; there seemed to be something abject in their nature, even among the noblest of them. But you are no riddle. While I think you are the least simple woman I ever met, you are to me the easiest to understand.
gpt
And yet I remember your telling me the exact contrary,
human
That was before I had caught the connecting thread. Had I been a woman, I believe that life and my place in it would have affected me exactly as it affects you.
gpt
I wish my wife had possessed your friendship, he said.
human
I believe you would have saved us. He passed his hands over his brow, looking round at the closed windows of the drawing-room.
gpt
I almost feel as if she were near us now on this old terrace that she loved so. She planted these roses herself--how they have grown!
human
You doubtless know the bare facts of her life, but nothing is so misleading as bare fact. My wife was one of the positive natures, capable of great nobility, but liable to glaring error and sin! She held ideas passionately. She had the old barbaric notion that a husband was a sort of master, and must assert his authority and rights. It was the result of her training. I saw that a great development was before her. I pleased myself with the thought of watching and helping it. She was built on a grand scale. To set her free from prejudice, from her injustice to herself, from her dependence on me; to teach her to breathe deep with those big lungs of hers and think bravely with that capacious brain: that was my dream. I hoped to hear her say to me some day, what I fear no woman has yet been able to say to her husband, 'The day of our marriage was the birthday of my freedom.'