In his good intentions she retained an implicit belief; but she was not
always satisfied that he acted in the wisest way. Occasionally it struck
her that he did not see as clearly as she did; at other times, that he
let a passing whim run away with him and override his common sense. And,
her eyes thus opened, it was not in Mary to stand dumbly by and watch
him make what she held to be mistakes. Openly to interfere, however,
would also have gone against the grain in her; she had bowed for too
long to his greater age and experience. So, seeing no other way out, she
fell back on indirect methods. To her regret. For, in watching other
women "manage" their husbands, she had felt proud to think that nothing
of this kind was necessary between Richard and her. Now she, too, began
to lay little schemes by which, without his being aware of it, she might
influence his judgment, divert or modify his plans.
Her enforced use of such tactics did not lessen the admiring affection
she bore him: that was framed to withstand harder tests. Indeed, she was
even aware of an added tenderness towards him, now she saw that it
behoved her to have forethought for them both. But into the wife's love
for her husband there crept something of a mother's love for her child;
for a wayward and impulsive, yet gifted creature, whose welfare and
happiness depended on her alone. And it is open to question whether the
mother dormant in Mary did not fall with a kind of hungry joy on this
late-found task.
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