“Only father and mother. They’re outdoors coolin’ off.”
“Good heavens!” Lena said. “Cooling off!”
“You’re feelin’ better now, aren’t you, Lena?” he asked hopefully.
“ ‘Better!’ ” she wailed. “Oh, heavens!”
Dan rested his elbows on the window-sill, and his chin on his hands. “They’re comin’ in, now,” he said after a while. “They’ve had their little evening walk in the yard together. They nearly always do that when the weather isn’t too cold.”
“ ‘Cold?’ I suppose this place gets just as cold in winter as it does hot in summer!”
“It does get pretty cold here in winter sometimes,” the thoughtless Dan said, with a touch of pride. “Why, last February——”
“Oh, heavens!” Lena wailed; and she began to weep again.
About midnight she was quiet, and Dan, going near her, discovered that she drowsed. His foot touched something upon the carpet, and he picked up the string of artificial pearls, put it upon the table beside the bed, then tiptoed out of the room, closing the door with great care to make no noise. The house was silent and solidly dark as he went down the broad stairway and opened the front door to let himself out into the faint illumination of the summer night. It was a night profoundly hushed and motionless; and within it, enclosed in heat, the town lay prostrate.
Sighing heavily, the young husband walked to and fro upon the short grass of the lawn, wondering what had “happened” to Lena—as he thought of it—to upset her so; wondering, too, what had happened to himself, that since he had married her she had most of the time seemed to him to be, not the Lena he thought he knew, but an inexplicable stranger. This was a mystery beyond his experience, and he could only sigh and shake his inadequate head; meanwhile pacing beneath the midnight stars. But they were neither puzzled nor surprised, those experienced stars, so delicately bright in the warm sky, for they had looked down upon uncounted other young husbands in his plight and pacing as he did.