Of course he asked himself why he should ache because she had at once resumed with him her old critical attitude, and why, moreover, he should care about her at all. She had almost no coquetry and little more of the quality called “sheer feminine charm”; she was too downright and plain-minded to possess much of either. She was not masculine yet, as her father said with the plaintive irascibility of a man who knows because he has suffered, she was imperious. “A man might as well be dead as bossed to death,” he often complained. And although she was a handsome creature and graceful, Harlan saw a dozen prettier girls at the new Country Club every day that he played golf there. Notwithstanding all this, she had only to let him see her again after years of absence, and at once his heart leaped, then ached, and he could think of nothing but this Martha who thought so little of himself.
He was not the only member of his family who found Martha’s return disturbing; his sister-in-law also had long thoughts connected with the arrival from Italy. That evening before dinner, Dan was whistling in his bathroom, shampooing himself lavishly, when Lena came into his bedroom and addressed him through the open door.
“I suppose you’ve seen her,” she said, and gave utterance to an emotional little titter that quickly stopped his whistling.
He had heard such semblances of amusement from her often enough to understand their prophetic meaning. “In for it again!” was instantly his thought. “Seen her?” he said. “Who do you mean?”
“Your fair mountain range,” Lena replied, affecting a light mockery. “Of course you didn’t know she’s home again! Innocent old Dannie!”
“I heard she was to get here to-day, so I suppose she’s here; but I haven’t seen her. What about it?”
“Oh, nothing!” Lena returned, continuing her archness. “Do you suppose she can stand it?”
“Stand what?”
“Why, the sight of us—of her old sweetheart married to me,” Lena explained. “She’s stayed away till she thought she could bear it, but do you suppose she will be able to?”
“Yes, I think she’ll bear it,” he said gruffly and went on with his lathering.