Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/143

I wouldn’t let her work; no, what she had to do was to keep the home on as little as possible, and always have everything clean and straight when I got back at night. But Jenny hadn’t the same ideas about things as I had. She couldn’t pinch and pare, and our plans of saving came to nothing. It grew worse as the children were born. The more need there was for carefulness, the more heedless Jenny seemed to get. And it was my fault, mine from beginning to end. Another man would have been gentle with her and showed her kindly when she was wrong, and have been thankful for the love she gave him, whatever her faults. That wasn’t my way. I got angry, and made her life a burden to her. I must have things done exactly as I wished; if not, there was no end to my fault-finding. And yet, if you’ll believe it, I loved my wife as truly as man ever did. Jenny couldn’t understand that,—and how should she? At last she began to deceive me in all sorts of little things; she got into debt with shop-people, she showed