Jeannette still hesitated. She wanted to see him again; yet she was afraid,—afraid of disappointment, of what her mother and sister might think, of herself and Roy. In the end, with what seemed to her a weakness she despised, she wrote him, and named an afternoon; Although the doctor had said she was to remain in bed for another week, she prevailed upon her mother and sister to move her into the studio, where with pillows about her and a comforter across her knees, and her hair arranged in the pretty fashion Alice sometimes liked to dress it, she received her lover.
It was as unsatisfactory an interview as she had feared. Constraint held them both. Jeannette was intent upon not betraying the delicious madness into which her thoughts of Roy had led her during the empty hours of her long illness, and she sat up stiffly, unbendingly. Roy did not understand. He thought the change in her was due to her illness, but there was something about her that troubled him. They made their promises to one another, they held each other’s hands, they kissed good-bye, but there was nothing fervid about any of it. At the door, however, when he turned, hat in hand, for a final, searching look, she saw a glitter in his eyes, his queer little mouth was straight and drawn harshly, unsmilingly across his teeth. It was that last look of him, that wet gleam in his eyes which took her courage and brought her own tears in a rush. But by then he was gone. The dull boom of the hall-door closing downstairs announced his departure with stern finality.
§ 2
The summer bore on, hot, unalleviated. The apartment smelled of strange odors, was close, airless in spite of open windows. The Najarians, with much banging and clattering, left with their trunks and boxes for several weeks at the seashore, and on the first of the month old Mrs. Porter, who had occupied the first floor since the building was erected thirty years before, moved away. Only the two trained nurses, one flight down, who were rarely at home, remained in the city during the burning weeks of July and August.
With the Sturgises, life became dreary and grew drearier. Miss Loughborough’s school closed, Signor Bellini departed for his beloved Italy, the Wednesday and Saturday pupils became fewer and fewer and by mid-July had evaporated entirely. Mrs. Sturgis, fretting over the trivial expenses each day inevitably brought, wore a worried, harassed air. She found some work to do, copying music, but this had to be given up, as her teeth commenced to give her trouble. How long she was able to disguise her discomfort from her daughters, they never guessed, but her misery eventually was discovered, and she was summarily driven to a dentist. It developed that her teeth were in such a decayed condition they would all have to be pulled, and replaced by an artificial set.
Poor Mrs. Sturgis wept and protested. She objected strenuously to anything so drastic. It wasn’t in the least necessary! She couldn’t possibly afford it! Her daughters urged her and argued with her until they lost their tempers and there was almost a quarrel in the little household. The dentist declined to modify his advice. Pain—cruel, persistent pain, that robbed her of her sleep, and sapped her strength—finally compelled her to give way.
“I’ll do it,—but my girlies haven’t the faintest idea what they are letting me in for! It will be the death of me!” wailed Mrs. Sturgis.
Jeannette, able to sit up now and hobble from one room to another, regarded her mother with frank impatience as she rocked vigorously back and forth, weeping abjectly into a drenched little handkerchief. She felt sorry for her, she would have made any sacrifice to alleviate her pain to make matters easier for her, and yet it was obvious there was no other course for her, and the sooner the teeth were out and a false set in their place, the better it would be for them all. The girl gazed gloomily out of the window.
“And my daughter’s no comfort to me,” continued Mrs. Sturgis, piteously, conscious of Jeannette’s unvoiced criticism. “The child that I’ve raised through sorrow and tribulation, through hunger and self-denial,—the daughter for whom I’ve worked and sacrificed my life....”
Jeannette continued to stare stonily into space, locked her fingers more tightly together, but said nothing.