MRS. CROMWELL also looked at the new house; then she shook her head. “It’s painful, rather,” she said, and evidently referred to something more than the house itself.
“Outright disgusting!” her friend insisted. “I suppose he’s there as much as ever?”
“Oh, yes. Rather more.”
“Well, I’ll say one thing,” Mrs. Dodge declared; “Amelia Battle won’t get any sympathy from me!”
“Sympathy? My dear, you don’t suppose she dreams she needs sympathy! Doesn’t she show the rest of us every day how she pities us because we’re not married to Roderick Brooks Battle?”
“Yes, and that’s what makes me so furious. But she will need sympathy,” Mrs. Dodge persisted, with a dark glance at the new house across the street. “She will when she knows about that!”
“But maybe she’ll never know.”
“What!” Mrs. Dodge laughed scornfully. “My dear, when a woman builds a man into a god he’s going to assume the privileges of a god.”
“And behave like the devil?”
“Just that,” Mrs. Dodge returned, grimly. “Especially when his idolater has burnt up her youth on his altar and her friends begin to notice she’s getting a skimpy look. What chance has a skimpy-looking slave against a glittering widow rich enough to build a new house every time she wants to have tête-à-têtes with a godlike architect?”