CHAPTER TWELVE
They did not mention the dinner again, but for weeks it hung in the background of all Anne's thought. The long silences and sudden irritations of Roger she interpreted by it, as well as her own growing inability to discuss his work with him. All their talks now were touched with the same dislike, almost fear, she had always had of dropping the curtain of Hilda's Niche behind her, and being left alone in the dark confusion of the interior.
Beyond the brilliant light of her own happiness in the coming of the baby, the still positive joy in her pretty home, there was something dark, hidden and unclear. It was as if Roger himself had absorbed some of the dumb hatred, the bitterness of revolt that saturated the outside world.
The longshore strike hung on; other strikes threatened in sympathy. The newspapers clamored for settlement. Through January and February, Roger was out almost every evening with Hilary Wainwright, attending useless efforts at adjustment. From these he returned, his anger throttled to consideration of Anne's condition, a consideration so palpable that Anne felt the foundations of her peace tremble.
Finally, one night at the beginning of March, when, after a brief rest of exhaustion, the rain was again pouring hour after hour, a mass of water from sky to earth, Anne spoke:
"A penny, Roger. You've been staring into the fire half an hour by the clock. I spoke twice and you never heard a word."
Roger turned to her. "Didn't I? I was thinking."
Anne put aside the tiny white nightgown she was hemstitching and drew her chair closer. "I should hope so. I'd hate to think you were just gazing blankly. You're getting awfully quiet, Roger."
"Am I? I suppose I am. There's so little time to really think in the day. It's so cluttered up doing—nothing."
"I thought Mr. Wainwright used to overwork you at first. It's about time he did a little more himself." Anne watched Roger's face, with something of the same tense interest with which one waits for a stage curtain to roll back.