From considering the abstract possibility of his wife's action, Herrick came down to Jean herself. Picture after picture of her flashed before him. Jean in the Sundays before their marriage. Jean as she had looked in the moonlight, beside the driftwood fires. Jean on the Sunday mornings when they used to argue about the novel. Did she ever think of it now? It was months since they had even mentioned it. Had she forgotten this thing that had once seemed the motive of her days? Had her interest ever been real, or had it only filled an empty space? In the mazes of his own nature Herrick groped and could find no answer. After almost three years of marriage Herrick knew less of Jean than he had the first day in the library.
Would she go on forever as they were going now? They had never referred in any way to the night that Jean had come back from Belgrave. It might never have been, for all the outward difference it had made in their lives. Only Jean never again mentioned a case nor did she ever ask him to come on Sunday afternoons to The Hill House where she poured for the neighborhood teas that she and Dr. Mary had instituted for the winter.
On Sundays Herrick went to Flop's. Jean made no comment, except sometimes to inquire about various people, with a forced interest that exasperated Herrick. As for The Bunch, they never asked about Jean. Behind the banner of "personal freedom," Herrick and The Kitten marched unquestioned. As indifferent as the rest, Vicky had gone back to the country. The Kitten had refused to go with him.
The long rains ended and spring came again. The air was clean and soft, and fluffy white clouds sailed over the hills, once more cameo-clear against the blue. Herrick and Jean saw even less of each other than through the winter. They ate together in the mornings and then went their ways. The paper was changing hands and Herrick spoke of the new proprietor and the future policy. Dr. Mary and Jean were drawing up a pamphlet on the evil conditions resulting from bad housing, and now that the actual gathering of statistics was over, and the work had widened to include quarrels with political bosses, with the Board of Health and Building Commissions, Jean was in her glory. The breakfasts were calm meals, unruffled, impersonal and dead.
The darkest spot in this third summer of Jean's married life was Martha. The small face was thinner and whiter and, for the first time in Jean's memory, her mother moved slowly about the house. Jean went as often as she could and frequently found her sitting on the porch behind the screen of roses, her hands idle in her lap. Twice, tiptoeing in unexpectedly, Jean had found her mother lying down, her eyes closed in such utter weariness that Jean's heart had stopped beating for a moment in a terrible fear.
But each time Martha had insisted that it was only the heat and promised faithfully that she would take more rest.
"Mummy, it's really selfish of you not to let me help. I know half a dozen women who would be glad to come over and work for their home and a very small salary, and I could spare it so easily."
"Now, Jeany, don't be silly." At this point Martha always got up briskly and began preparing tea. "In all the years that I've kept house, I've never had a maid."
"Which is no reason at all," Jean insisted. "You know, Martha Norris, that once you see the error of your ways the trouble's over. You used to tell me that yourself when I was a little girl."
"Maybe I did. But the cases aren't the same."