But she was too heartsick to talk; and he forgot that he was walking with her, could only feel ruin’s arm linked firmly in his. It was dusk when they reached the house.
In the doorway he took her hand and held it.
“I shall see you when I return?” he asked. “Will you answer if I write now and then?”
“Yes,” she replied gratefully.
She sent away the servant who came at her ring. She detained Frothingham, hoping against reason and instinct that he would tear off that tranquil mask of his, would forget his responsibilities as the bearer of a proud and ancient name, would say: “I care for only you. Come!” Even after he had left her she lingered, holding the door ajar, listening for returning footsteps. At last she shut the door, and went forlornly and wearily to her great, lonely, sombre dressing room. She stood before the mirror of her dressing table, studying her plain, wistful, woeful little face. “You aren’t pretty,” she said to it, with that candour which has its chance in those rare moments when vanity is quite downcast. “And one can’t expect much when men think of nothing but looks in a woman.” She could no longer see herself for tears. “And I believe he’d have been—at least kind to me.”
She rang for her maid, and began listlessly and mechanically to dress for dinner.
XVI
AT Chicago Barney came down the platform to meet Frothingham. “Here you are!” he exclaimed. “Six months in the country, but not a bit changed. And if an American goes over to your side and stays a week he has to learn the language all over again when he gets back.”