“I know Antony is an idiot about him. I know his behavior has been shameful to ‘that Duval.’ Poor Dick! What has the man done but dare admire me? A cat may look at a king. Many women would give Antony a lesson on that subject—they would not be accused for nothing.”
“But not you, Rose! Not you, dear Rose! Do not be impatient. Baby will soon be well, and Antony does love you so——”
“Do hush, Yanna! Antony loves nothing about me. But I must go now, or else I shall get another scolding for leaving baby so long; or a look worse than words; or silence, and Antony ostentatiously walking Emma up and down the floor; and mamma sighing; and the doctor solemnly standing by; and the nurse tip-toeing about the room; and the room so dark, and smelling of drugs, and full of suffering—it is all so dreadful! For I want to be out in the fresh spring air, and wind, and sunshine. I want to dance and run in it. My blood goes racing through my veins like 231 quicksilver, and it is a kind of torture to sit still, and talk in whispers, and see baby’s white waxy face, and smell nothing but drugs. When I went to show myself to Antony yesterday in my new suit, and held the lovely roses to his face, he turned away as if I were a fright, and put the flowers from him, as if they hurt. Such ways I cannot understand!”
This conversation rather quieted than increased Yanna’s misgivings. She thought she understood the restless woman. Beautiful, and longing to exhibit her beauty, full of the pulse and pride of youth, excited by dreams of all sensuous delights, romantic, sentimental, and vain, she was resentful at the circumstances which bound her to the stillness and shadow of the sick room, because she was incredulous of any necessity for such devotion. For the latter feeling Mrs. Filmer was much to blame. She had not the keen intuitions regarding life and death which Antony possessed; she had dim remembrances of her own children’s trials, she had the experiences of her friends on the same subject, and she did not honestly believe little Emma was in any special danger. Consequently, she had supported Rose in her claim to regard her own health, and go out a little every day. And if Antony had been asked for the reason of his great anxiety, he would not have cared to explain it to his wife or his mother-in-law. Both these women would have smiled at what he had learned through the second sight of dreams, in that mysterious travail of sleep, by which the man that feareth God is instructed and prepared for “the sorrow that is approaching”; because, if apprehension of the supernatural is not in the human soul, neither miracle nor revelation can authenticate it to them.
So Antony bore his fear in silence, and told no one the Word that had come to him; strengthening his heart with the brave resolve of the wise Esdras: “Now, therefore, keep thy sorrow to thyself; and bear with a good courage that which hath befallen thee.”
About ten days after this event, Rose left her home early one morning to complete the shopping necessary for their removal to Woodsome on the following day. Mrs. Filmer promised to remain with the sick child until her return; but she urged Rose to make all haste possible, as there were various matters in the Filmer household to attend to ere Mr. Filmer and herself could comfortably leave for Europe on the Saturday’s steamer. With these considerations in view, she was annoyed at Rose for positively refusing the carriage. “I want to walk, mamma,” she said crossly; “and if I get tired, I will take the street cars.”
“But you may be delayed by them, and time is precious now.”
Then she kissed her mother affectionately, and stooped to little Emma’s cot, and with a long, soft pressure of her lips to the lips of the fragile-looking child, she went away, promising to be home certainly before noon. But she was not home at one o’clock; and Mrs. Filmer and Antony ate their lunch together, both of them with a hot, angry heart at Rose’s indifference. At two o’clock Rose was still absent, and a singular feeling of alarm had taken the place of anger.
“What keeps Rose so long, mother?” asked Antony, in an anxious voice.