It was after eleven when Roger came in. He thought Anne was asleep and got into bed quietly. But after a little while, she turned to him.
"What's Mr. Wainwright going to do, Roger?"
"Nothing," Roger said heavily. "Nothing at all."
Anne crept closer to him and stroked his cheek. "I'm so sorry, dear."
Roger moved impatiently. "Don't do that, Anne, it fidgets me."
Anne instantly withdrew her hand. Roger reached for it and clasped it listlessly. "Excuse me, dear, but I'm all tensed up. He was so damned judicial and—and 'just.'"
CHAPTER TEN
For several weeks after Roger's outburst, Anne sensed a new element in her life, as if she had come face to face with something hidden before. This element was a quality in Roger that changed the angle of their relations. She felt that she might be suddenly called upon for calm judgment, a need might arise for a balancing force between them. The foundations of her new life, of the deep peace and security she had felt for the last six months, were not quite so secure as she had thought them. There was something in Roger she was not quite sure of.
Often during the day, Anne stopped her housework, and made conversational beginnings calculated to lead to an opening of this subject with him. But when she concentrated her uneasiness in words, it seemed always to gain more substance than it really had. Roger did not approve of Hilary Wainwright. He never had, exactly. But Hilary Wainwright was not crooked as John Lowell had been. At worst, his methods might be mistaken. He was trying to do something worth while, even if he went more slowly and cautiously than Roger's enthusiasm demanded.
Again and again, Anne concluded that she was exaggerating the tension between Roger and Wainwright, only to have her fear reach out of the most unexpected situations and touch her with a small, cold finger.