A Question of Temperament.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVIII, Issue XXI, 24 May 1902, Page 1046

A Question of Temperament.

(By WINIFRED CROOKE.) The beck grows wider, the hands must sever. „ , On either margin, our songs all done. We move apart, while she slngeth ever, Taking the course of the stooping sun. —Jean Ingelow. A dappled sky, full of softest light, yellow daffodils lighting the upland slope, beyond a wood low-lying, veiled in mysterious blue. But the man and woman slowly pacing the winding path were utterly oblivious of the beauty of their surroundings. “Margaret, '* he said, earnestly, “you will be most careful to have all your boxes well corded and properly labelled. 1 can imagine nothing more annoying than to arrive at our destination and find your luggage missing.”

Margaret laughed a merry, ringing laugh. “Even worse than finding your bride missing? Harold, I sometimes believe yon think more of the little details of life than you do of me, and 1 am such a careless person, dear. I bave never had any responsibilities, save of shaping my career as an art student. I am very ignorant of household matters —will you be satisfied with me?”

“Satisfied? Of course, my sweetheart!" and the man kissed the warm, red lips near his. How could he answer otherwise when that day week was their wedding day?” But the years that followed that sweet spring morning- when Harold and Margaret Dane were married were often ruffled with jar and fret. Love enchantment cannot last when the wheels of life do not run smoothly. It was Margaret’s impulsive, erratic nature, with all its Celtic characteristics, to leave all till the last moment; to have her belongings scattered in chaotic confusion through their tiny home. Harold was the neatest and most methodical of men, exact and severe, of puissant will, but belittling his nature by his intolerance of other people’s faults and his dwelling on the trifles of life. Even the first few months of their wedded life had been clouded with passing storms. Though Margaret tried hard to conform to Harold’s habit of exactness there had been sharp words and a few tears before baby May came. Then for a little while the tenderness in the man’s nature held sway, but the increased work a baby brings in a small household caused Margaret to lapse back into her old untidy ways. "Margaret, there are three buttons off my waistcoat; I told you they were loose yesterday —I can’t go to the otlice like this.”

And the man flapped the offending garment with an impatient hand. “I’ll sew them on in a minute, dear. I'll run for my button-box.” BtJf in five minutes Margaret returned breathless. “I’m so sorry, dear, I can't find any buttons that will suit. "I gave baby the box yesterday to play with and she must have emptied them into the coal scuttle. Won't you change your clothes?”

"Yes! and be late at the office. No! if you don't mind the world at large seeing what a careless wife I have ■why should I?” and Harold, taking his hat unbrushed from the hat-stand, banged the door behind him without a word of farewell. All day the buttonless waistcoat and the unbrushed hat rankled as poison in the man's unbalanced mind, and the undefined resolve that had lingered for weeks and months defined itself with crystalline sharpness.

The passionate love of the lover had died under the burden of uncongenial ways. He would not fashion his life on Margaret's lines. She could not conform to his. Everything went wrong with Margaret in the house that day. The butcher forgot to call, consequently dinner was not ready when Harold arrived precisely at halfpast six.- The untrained general was scurrying to and fro with half cleaned knives, while Margaret in the nursery tried vainly to hurry May out of her bath into her cot, thinking with sinking heart of the glass water bottle ahe had broken, knowing Har-

old's keen eyes would detect its absence from the table.

It seemed to the tired man stepping in out of the cheerless night that the whole house breathed unrest and disorder. “Margaret,” he said, as he stood before her tall and unsmiling, with no word of love for his little daughter, who, pink and rosy, cooed sweet cood-nights to him.

“Margaret, put May to bed as quickly as you can. 1 wish to speak to you after dinner.” Dinner passed, with its half cold plates, ill-cooked potatoes, and an unshapely blancmange that another time would have roused Harold's indignation; but to-night the temporary things were lost in the future.

Margaret tried timidly to smooth the silent meal with gentle speeches, but to both it was a relief to pass into the small drawing-room with its artistic though dusty faded yellow curtains, which had once been Margaret's delight.

Then, in brief words, Harold told her the present condition of things had become intolerable for him. that he had determined they should live apart, he to return to his mother's, taking baby May with him; while Margaret,if she wished, could resume her art studies on the allowance he would make her, which would be as liberal as his means allowed. There fell a silence in the ill-lit room, which formed a commonplace background for the tragedy that burned in the woman’s heart, broken only by the fitful wind outside sighing a dirge to the dissolution of lo've within. Margaret faced her husband with white, set lips. “Because I cannot please you in the trivial things of life; because I fail in my housekeeping and forget sometimes what you would have me remember, you would send me adrift on the world, taking my child, breaking up our home, withdrawing your love—” “Yes,” and the man's delicate fingers grasped the curtains restlessly. “I do not wish May to grow up in this atmosphere of neglect and disorder.” “Neglect!” cried Margaret, with flashing eyes. But the man waved her aside as he continued; “My mother will train her in all the qualities a true woman should possess. You may see her occasionally. We were utterly unsuited for each other —you, brought up among a careless, Bohemian set of beautylovers, to whom the present was the only thing of moment. I, surrounded by ' the strictest rule and discipline till it has grown the strongest part of my nature. The house and your management so grate on me at every turn that to continue living- as we are doing would drive me mad. I (jo not deny you have tried to follow my wishes, and failed. I, too, have tried to overlook things, and I have failed — so two failures are best apart.” He turned quickly and passed out of the room, and on out into the night to avoid Margaret’s despairing face. It was not long ere the man’s dominating will carried his resolve into fruition.

Sometimes as he sits at his mother’s well-regulated table and his eyes travel round the trim orderly room that his soul loves, there comes a slight pang and a wonder as if he missed something that the gratification of his wishes cannot give, but the gleaming of a well cleaned knife and a polished glass comforts him. But to Margaret, eating out her heart in loneliness, life is a constant bitterness. She is but an indifferent artist, and the rare colourings of a hillside or the patch of purple heather and yellow gorse, with a blue sky above, is powerless to comfort the soul that hankers after the lost loves of life.