He dwelt a little longer in the paradise which he had created for himself. It was absurd to require in an exquisite creature like Hilda the interests natural to an older woman or to a student. Compared with the young women whom he had known in the University, she was immeasurably attractive and she could not be expected to possess every perfection.
It was not long, however, before he understood clearly that her dullness to the passion of his life, his profession, was due not only to ignorance but to indifference. Their first quarrel was precipitated by his announcement of his plans for the future.
"New York is the place for us to live. Each country has one center; England has London, France has Paris, and the United States has New York." Stephen often spoke in this sententious fashion in his youth. "There the world currents--"
"But we are not going to live in New York," said Hilda quickly.
"Because I don't want to. I'll go there for a few weeks as often as you like in the winter, but I'm going to live in my own house. In New York you're nobody unless you're worth millions and millions; in Harrisburg you can be somebody for a good deal less than that."
"In Harrisburg!" Stephen was not aware of his absurdity until Hilda pointed it out to him.
"I should think that any one who had lived in Chestnut Ridge with a breaker before the door would find Harrisburg heaven!"
Stephen flushed. He had poured out to her in a moment of unique confidence a description of Chestnut Ridge. With it he had told her not only about his father's life, but about his death, and it was unfeeling to recall the conversation in this scornful fashion.
"Your living!" repeated Hilda. She uttered a delicate and good-natured pleasantry. "I thought you married me for that!"
Stephen made no answer. After a while, when he could go without seeming to be angry, he left her on the porch of the hotel where they were spending their honeymoon and went to walk alone. He was shocked, amazed, even appalled.
Once more and only once he broached the subject.
"I am exceedingly anxious to do well in my profession, Hilda," he said earnestly. "New York is the only place where a man can really have a brilliant success."
In the end, after six months abroad, Stephen hung out his sign upon the Manning Street wing of Hilda's house and there practiced his profession for seven or eight months in the year. The other months he spent in her train, journeying from one fashionable American and European resort to the other. During these excursions he was idle except for stolen visits to clinics and lectures, and he was constantly unhappy. He still had faith in his own powers and he realized that his best years were passing and that other men and even younger men were winning honors which should have been his. He knew that Hilda believed that she had made generous concessions in allowing him to practice at all. He knew that her friends--though her associates could scarcely be called friends, so light were the ties that bound them--thought him exceedingly lucky, but he believed that his colleagues held him to be a fashionable quack. He held himself to be the most unhappy of men.