"I guess I said some queer things," Amanda ventured next, and gave an odd, furtive look from her light eyes.
"You certainly did," said Elizabeth, coldly. Not all the pity she felt for Amanda's weakness could avail to make her speak in any other way.
"Well, I guess," Amanda said, after a moment and closing her eyes as if wearied out, "people aren't accountable for what they say when they're sick."
"No," said Elizabeth, "I suppose not." And with this tacit apology and its acceptance, this episode between the cousins might be considered closed. Certainly, on Elizabeth's side, it was not only closed, but forgotten, in the pressure of far more serious troubles.
As she knelt that afternoon looking into the fire, a vision of her future life—colorless, empty, without joy or love—seemed to stare back at her from its glowing depths. The years stretched out before her, a dreary waste—without Paul. She was sure that he would never come back; the bond between them seemed the merest shadow. He had forgotten her in three short months, while she was more in love than ever, since she had never fully realized, at the time, the void that he would leave behind him. For a short time her life had bloomed like the summer; and now nothing was left to her but the fast-approaching gray monotony of the November days, and the bleak cold of the winter.
Upon these cheerful reflections entered Mrs. Bobby Van Antwerp, in a short skirt somewhat the worse for wear, with dark eyes that shone brilliantly beneath her battered hat, and her small piquante face glowing with health and exercise.
"Don't get up," she said. "What a beautiful blaze!" She sat down to it at once and held out her small, gloveless hands to its pleasant warmth. "I walked all the way," she announced, triumphantly, "and I thought I would just drop in, and perhaps you'd give me a cup of tea."
One must have lived in the Neighborhood to appreciate the informality of all this. People paid calls in their carriages, with their card-cases and their best Sunday gowns—it was not good form to come on foot, even had the distances permitted. But the young woman always spoken of as "Mrs. Bobby" though her claims to a more formal designation had long since been established, was a law unto herself and cared little what the Neighborhood's laws might be. Elizabeth had already noticed that this great lady, the greatest lady in the Neighborhood, treated her with more friendliness than other people of less assured position with whom she was, theoretically, on more intimate terms. This curious fact, and the cause of it, occupied her thoughts while she rang the bell and ordered tea, a little flustered inwardly, but outwardly calm, and comfortably conscious of the becoming neatness of her serge skirt and velveteen blouse. Whatever her troubles might be, she had not yet reached so great a pitch of desperation as to neglect her appearance.
"Aren't these autumn days beautiful!" said Mrs. Bobby, making herself at home by unfastening her coat and tossing aside her hat, whereby she disclosed to view a somewhat tousled halo of curly dark hair. "I tell Bobby that just these few days in the autumn make up to us for the bother of keeping the place, though in summer it is fearfully hot, and unspeakably dull all the year round. It must be very dull for you," said Mrs. Bobby, coming to a sudden pause.
"Oh, yes, it's dull," Elizabeth admitted, with a little sigh.