If home had been a pleasant place to him, Mr.Emerson would have usually remained at home after the day's duties were over; or, if he went abroad, it would have been usually in company with his wife.

But home was getting to be dull, if not positively disagreeable.

If a conversation was started, it soon involved disagreement in sentiment, and then came argument, and perhaps ungentle words, followed by silence and a mutual writing down in the mind of bitter things.

If there was no conversation, Irene buried herself in a book--some absorbing novel, usually of the heroic school.
Naturally, under this state of things, Mr.Emerson, who was social in disposition, sought companionship elsewhere, and with his own sex.

Brought into contact with men of different tastes, feelings and habits of thinking, he gradually selected a few as intimate friends, and, in association with these, formed, as his wife was doing, a social point of interest outside of his home; thus widening still further the space between them.
The home duties involved in housekeeping, indifferently as they had always been discharged by Irene, were now becoming more and more distasteful to her.