With this object in view she took, when the charm of the meeting began to lose its lustre, the conversation in hand herself. She felt that the time had come. Well she understood when she saw on Colonel Ogilvie’s face the very faintest shade of a shadow of that dark look which in earlier years had meant trouble for some one. “Lucius is thinking!” was the way she put it to herself. To a woman of her bringing up, the acts of the men of the family, and especially of its head, were not within the women’s sphere. In the old slave-owning families there was perpetuated something of the spirit of subordination—some survival of old feudal principle. This was especially so in everything relating to quarrels or fighting. It was not women’s work, and women were trained not to take any part in it, not even to manifest any concern. Indeed the free-spirited Judy having lived so many years in that particular atmosphere, before being able to look round her in wider communities, compared the dominance of view of a man in his own family life to that of a cock who lords it over the farmyard, struts about masterfully, and summons his household round him with no other purpose than his own will. Woman-like she was content to yield herself to the situation.
“We’re all the same,” she once said to a farmer’s wife, “women or hens. When the master clucks we come!”
As it was quite apparent to her that both her sister and brother-in-law were uneasy, she began to take on herself the responsibility of action, even if it should have to be followed by the odium.
“What’s the use of being an old maid if you can’t do something!” she said to herself as a sort of rallying cry to her own nerves. Such gathering of one’s courage is not uncommon; it is, in unusual circumstances, to many men and to most women. It does not as a rule apply to professional or accustomed duties. To the soldier, the lawyer, the engineer, the man of commerce, each as such, the faculties which wait on the intelligence are already braced by habit. And to the woman in her hours of social self-consciousness the same applies. When a woman puts on her best frock she is armed and ready as completely as is the cavalry man with the thunder of the squadron behind him; as the artillery man when “Action!” has been sounded. Ordinarily Miss Judith was equal to all demands made on her; now she was engaging in a matter in which she did not thoroughly understand either the purpose or the end. Now she spoke:
“Have you been staying long in New York Mr. Hardy?” At the moment Athlyne was talking with his hostess and did not seem to hear; but Joy heard and said gently: “Mr. Hardy!” He turned suddenly red, even to his ears.
“I beg your pardon, I didn’t …” There he stopped, suddenly realizing that he had almost betrayed himself. The fact was that he heard the question but forgot for an instant the part he was playing. His ears had been tuned to the music of Joy’s voice, and he did not wake at once to the less welcome sound. Partly it was of course due to the fact that as yet he had heard but little of Aunt Judy’s speech; her intentional silence had a drawback as well as an advantage. He stopped his explanation just in time to save suspicion from the rest of the family, but not from Judy, who having an intention of her own was alert to everything. She made a mental note to be afterwards excogitated: “I didn’t—what?”
She repeated the question. He answered with what nonchalance he could:
“No. Only a few days.”
“Do you remain long?”
“I am sorry to say that I cannot. I had promised myself a few weeks after grizzlies; but that has to be foregone for the present. Something has happened which requires my going back at once. But I hope to renew my visit before long.” He was pleased with himself for the verbal accuracy of the statement, and this reassured him.