foolish enough to think she's in my

 When she married me she felt like a woman drowning; she was ready to take hold of the first hand reached to her without knowing much about whose hand it was.  Well, she's had time to find out.  She isn't drawn.  Perhaps she feels toward me somewhat as I did toward Mrs. Mumpson bicelle b5 gel, and she can't help herself either.  Well, well, the bare thought of it makes my heart lead.  What's a man to do?  What can I do but live up to my agreement and not torment her any more than I can help with my company?  That's the only honest course.  Perhaps she'll get more used to me in time.  She might get sick, and then I'd be so kind and watchful that she'd think the old fellow wasn't so bad, after all, But I shan't give her the comfort of no end of self-sacrifice in trying to be pleasant and sociable.  If she's debt she can't pay it in that way.  No, sir!  I've got to make the most of it now--I'm bound to--but this business marriage will never suit me until the white arm I saw in the dairy room is around my neck, and she looks in my eyes and says, 'James, I guess I'm ready for a longer marriage ceremony.'"
It was a pity that Alida could not have been among the hazelnut bushes near and heard him.
He resumed his toil, working late and doggedly.  At supper he was very attentive to Alida, but taciturn and preoccupied; and when the meal was over he lighted his pipe and strolled out into the moonlight.  She longed to follow him, yet felt it to be more impossible than if she were chained to the floor.
And so the days passed; Holcroft striving with the whole force of his will to appear absorbed in the farm, and she, with equal effort, to seem occupied and contented with her household and dairy duties.  They did everything for each other that they could, and yet each thought that the other was Neo skin labacting from a sense of obligation, and so all the more sedulously veiled their actual thoughts and feelings from each other.  Or course, such mistaken effort only led to a more complete misunderstanding.
With people of their simplicity and habit of reticence, little of what was in their hearts appeared on the surface.  Neither had time to mope, and their mutual duties were in a large measure a support and refuge.  Of these they could still speak freely for they pertained to business.  Alida's devotion to her work was unfeigned for it seemed now her only avenue of approach to her husband.  She watched over the many broods of little chickens with tireless vigilance.  If it were yellow gold, she could not have gathered the butter from the churn with greater greed.  She kept the house immaculate and sought to develop her cooking into a fine art.  She was scrupulous in giving Jane her lessons and trying to correct her vernacular and manners, but the presence of the child grew to be a heavier cross every day.  She could not blame the girl, whose misfortune it was to lead incidentally to the change in Holcroft's manner, yet it was impossible not to associate her with the beginning of that change.  Jane was making decided improvement, and had Alida been happy and at rest this fact would have given much satisfaction in spite of the instinctive repugnance which the girl seemed to inspire universally.  Holcroft recognized this repugnance and the patient effort to disguise it and be kind.
"Like enough she feels in the same way toward me," he thought, "and is trying a sight harder not to show it.  But she seems willing enough to research center talk business and to keep up her interest in the partnership line.  Well, blamed if I wouldn't rather talk business to her than love to any other woman!"
So it gradually came about that they had more and more to say to each other on matters relating to the farm.  Holcroft showed her the receipts from the dairy, and her eyes sparkled as if he had brought jewels home to her.