That was all our greeting after a week's absence. I had a kind of stunned feeling, and did not really care for endearments, though sometimes Dan was very lavish of them. I had not yet grown used to this revelation of myself. I must learn to love my husband, it was my only safeguard. Otherwise I should be a miserable, sinful woman. For I realized now how I had loved Norman Hayne through these years of my childhood, and how I could love him now, how he would fill the spaces in my heart that had never been satisfied. The pain and longing I had never understood before.
There was another aspect to the case. Father's influence had its share in the step I realized. He had not thought then he could live very long, and it was his dear love for me that longed to see me safe in some one's hands. He suffered enough in knowing that my husband had grown careless, he must never guess that I could have given my supreme affection to another and been happy, blessed beyond measure.
Why had Dan married me?
He could not have been so much in love with an unformed child, though I think I did amuse him with my petulance and protests. He loved to conquer anything. He could subdue the most fractious horse and do more with an obstinate mule than any one else. He really enjoyed my resistance. But was there any thought that at father's death I should be left with quite a fortune? There was his anger about the house, his objections to young John Gaynor. Yet now they seemed matters almost of indifference to him.
But there was my duty and my safety. Father was a very upright man and used to clear distinctions, and I knew I had inherited them. I was a wife and I had no right to consider what my life might have been with any other man, to brood over what I had missed.
It seemed truly as if Norman helped me. Had I done or said anything in that moment of the lapsing of consciousness? He came only when father was around. Oh, what talks there were out on the porch, to which I listened enchanted, yet I sat a little by myself, or with father's arm around me. Mrs. Hayne gathered the family together, and father went along. Four sweet, merry grandchildren, Sophie bright, commonplace to be sure, but a most excellent wife and mother. We talked of the one who "was not," of the night I had come a Little Girl, of the many delightful old things.
Dan was there, but I noted a curious restlessness about him, as if he was bored, and an abstraction. His thoughts certainly were elsewhere, yet he told droll stories and anecdotes and chaffed Norman. When we made ready to return Ben said he would go along, he had an errand uptown. We were old enough to divide our city in sections already.
"Ben—if you'll just see my folks safe home," he said, "I'll be mightily obliged to you. I ought to see some one on business, and I know I can catch him to-night."
"Yes," assented Ben, and then Chris said he would go, too. Norman was petting and playing with little Ruth.
Dan walked a short distance with us and then turned off with a cheerful good-night. But it was past midnight when he returned.