They were glad to see her at home, and they had a great deal to tell that had happened to them in the week. They wondered a little that she did not relate more concerning her journey, but they were used to Serene’s silences, and her mother was satisfied with the effect of the visit when she observed that Serene seemed to take pleasure in everything she did, even in the washing of the supper-dishes.
There were threatening clouds in the sky that evening, as there had often been before that summer, but people were weary of saying that it looked like a shower. Nevertheless, when Serene woke in the night, not only was there vivid lightning in the sky, and the roll of distant but approaching thunder, but there was also the unfamiliar sound of rain blown sharply against the roof, and a delicious coolness in the room. The long drought was broken.
She sat up in her white bed to hear the joyous sound more clearly. It was as though the thunder said, “Lift up your heart!” And the rapturous throbbing of the rain seemed like the gracious downpouring of a needed shower on her own parched and thirsty life.
AN INSTANCE OF CHIVALRY
Applegate entered his door that night with a delightful sense of the difference between the sharp November air without and the warmth and brightness within, but as he stood in the little square hall taking off his overcoat, this comfortable feeling gave way to a heart-sick shrinking of which he was unashamed. He was a man of peace, and through the closed door of the sitting-room came the sound of voluble and angry speech. The voice was that of Mrs. Applegate.
Reluctantly he pushed open the door. It was a pretty quarrel as it stood. At one end of the little room, gay with light and color, was Julie, leaning on the mantel. She wore a crimson house-dress a trifle low at the throat, which set off vividly her rich, dark beauty. Undoubtedly she had beauty, and a singular, gypsy-like piquancy as well. It did not seem to matter that the gown was slightly shabby. She was kicking the white fur hearth-rug petulantly now and then to punctuate her remarks.
Dora, with her book in her lap, sat in a low chair by the lamp. Dora was a slender, self-possessed girl of fifteen, in whose cold, young eyes her step-mother had read from the first a concentrated and silent disapproval which was really very exasperating.
“It’s the first time that woman has set foot in this house since I’ve been the mistress of it,” Julie was saying, angrily. “Maybe she thinks I ain’t fine enough for her to call on. Lord! I’d like to tell her what I think of her. It was her business to ask for me, and it was your business to call me, whether she did or not. Maybe you think I ain’t enough of a lady to answer Mrs. Buel Parry’s questions. I’d like to have you remember I’m your father’s wife!”
Dora’s head dropped lower in an agony of vicarious shame. How, her severe young mind was asking itself, could any woman bear to give herself away to such an appalling extent? To reveal that one had thwarted social ambitions; to admit that one might not seem a lady—degradation could go no farther in the young girl’s eyes.
“What’s the matter, Dora?” asked Applegate, quietly, in the lull following Julie’s last remark.