Ethel's face flamed into anger, and she stood up to leave the room.
"Tom, if you are going to be rude, I have done with you. I didn't wish to hurt your feelings more than was needed; but as you are determined to have another reason, it's easy enough to give. I don't care an atom for you, and I never shall care! I don't want ever to see anything more of you at all."
Tom was crushed. He had done the business now, and no mistake. The proverbial dove flying in his face would not have amazed him more than this indignant outburst. He did not dare to follow Ethel; but presently he heard a step running downstairs, and when he looked out of the window, there was Ethel in the garden, dressed as for a walk.
Where could she be going? Darkness fell early these wintry afternoons. It would soon be dusk.
Tom saw nothing of Ethel for hours afterward. Nobody seemed to know where she had betaken herself. "In the parish, of course," everybody said, when Tom went about asking questions. At five-o'clock tea she did not become visible. Tom felt sufficiently punished; yet he began to count Ethel's absence almost a compliment. It seemed to clothe him with a certain fictitious importance.
[CHAPTER XXII]
THE BREAKING STORM
"For life is one long sleep,
O'er which in gusts do sweep
Visions of heaven;
The body but a closed lid,
By which the real world is hid
From the spirit slumbering dark below;
And all our earthly strife and woe,
Tossings in slumber to and fro;
And all we know of heaven and light
In visions of the day or night
To us is given."
—Author of "Schönberg-Cotta Family."
FOR Mr. Carden-Cox to have a disturbed equanimity meant talk. Whatever he felt flowed outward in the natural vent of talk. This is usually supposed to be a feminine characteristic, but some men inherit it largely from their mothers, and Mr. Carden-Cox possessed it in perfection. The more his feelings were stirred, the more he had to say.
This was the style of thing:—