"I do, Anne, really."
"Then we'll go and have planked steak."
In the sweetness of reconciliation, Roger forgot to throw out the pot-roast. They had a gay and expensive dinner at the Pheasant and went to the theater afterwards.
But, for the rest of the week, Roger ate savoury ragouts, and meat pies which taxed Anne's ingenuity to the utmost, especially when the pot-roast had dwindled to a dry, outer rim.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
There were times in the next month when Roger seriously considered going back into the law. He even went so far as looking up Walter Marsh, an old college chum with whom he had rather grown out of touch, now a very successful corporation lawyer. But at Marsh's hints that there was an opening with him if Roger cared to consider it, Roger always hurried away from further discussion. Nor did he tell Anne of these visits.
Anne never referred to his leaving Wainwright, nor did she ever again serve pot-roast. Apparently their method of life was unchanged. Roger could not put his finger on any one incident, recall a single allusion of Anne's, but he now felt encased in an atmosphere of watching, of tight guardedness, and of economical maneuverings. Outwardly Anne seemed as cheerful as ever, but Roger could feel unexpressed criticism moving shadow-like about him, and his nerves tightened. He often grew irritable and then desperately contrite. Irritation at this time was brutal, but Roger could not shake off the feeling of breathing imperceptible particles of objection. Sometimes he started to talk out their situation frankly, but it always ended in a fog. He felt as if he were beating with exaggerated violence in a cloud of dust. The air was full of minute, subtle differences, sudden closings of Anne's lips, sentences caught and deftly turned from their first intention; and of Anne's patience. This patience was the hardest to stand without reference.
Again and again Roger tried to explain this growing tensity between them by Anne's nervous condition. But Anne had never felt better in her life. Always pretty in a cool, silvery way, there were moments now when Anne seemed to send from within a living, golden flame. Often, in the evenings, when Anne sat, her head bent above the small, white sewing in her lap, Roger trembled, awed and a little frightened before the marvel of this thing that was happening to Anne.
It was after a sudden, stabbing vision of Anne like this, that Roger went to Walter Marsh's office for the second time in one week.
"Hello." Walter Marsh put away some important work to greet Roger. "Well, what's the decision?"