"She can't," Doris said softly. "Because she doesn't want to. If she loves him, she doesn't want him to be great. She may inspire him but just as soon as she sees his inspiration takes him away from her, she turns around and tries to ruin him. So she can have him to herself."
Basine listened impatiently. This was a child prattling. Doris was laughing. He looked at her questioningly. Her laughter continued and grew harsh.
"You fool," she sighed, controlling herself. "Oh you fool."
Basine shook his head. He was serious. There were hidden facts in his mind. He knew something about what a woman might do to help a man forward. These facts seemed to him allies--secret allies, as he contradicted his sister.
"I insist you're wrong," he said. He was determined to prove her wrong. But she went on, ignoring his intensity.
"Your wife is ideal, George. Colorless, stupid. Dead. Without desires or egoism. An ideal wife for a man of ambition. The kind that will let you alone."
"Nonsense. You're utterly wrong," he cried. He must prove to her how utterly wrong she was. There was Ruth.
"Men owe most of their success to the impulse the right woman can give them. Henrietta's all right. But she's so damn dead. She's interested in nothing. Just a child with a child's mind and outlook. And she gets more so every year. Good God, if I had somebody with life in her. Keen and ... who loved me. So that I wanted to be great in her eyes. It would be easier. Somebody ... like you, Doris."
He paused, confused. "I mean," he added, "your type. The intellectual and female combined."
He had long ago told her of his courtship, of the curious way he had tricked himself into matrimony and she had always laughed at his unhappiness and said this--only a fool tricked himself as he had done. Nevertheless his marriage was ideal.
"Men instinctively pick out what they need," she would say. "And a man like you needs a nonentity like Henrietta. You wait and see. Your happiness isn't coming from emotion inside but from emotion outside--the noise of praise the public will someday give you."
But there were facts now hidden in his head to disprove this. He started as Doris announced casually,
They finished their tea. A knock on the door frightened him. The girl! No. Doris called, "Come in," and Levine entered. Basine nodded to him.