“You scoundrel!” she hissed, her whole body shaking and her carefully-cultivated appearance of the gracious evening of youth swallowed up in a black cyclone of hate. “You gutter-plant! God will punish you for the shame you have brought upon us!”
I opened the door and bowed, without a word, without even the desire to return insult for insult—had not Anita evidently again and finally rejected them and chosen me? As they passed into the private hall I rang for Sanders to come and let them out. When I turned back into the drawing-room, Anita was seated, was reading a book. I waited until I saw she was not going to speak. Then I said: “What time will you have dinner?” But my face must have been expressing some of the joy and gratitude that filled me. “She has chosen!” I was saying to myself over and over.
“Whenever you usually have it,” she replied, without looking up.
“At seven o'clock, then. You had better tell Sanders.”
I rang for him and went into my little smoking-room. She had resisted her parents' final appeal to her to return to them. She had cast in her lot with me. “The rest can be left to time,” said I to myself. And, reviewing all that had happened, I let a wild hope send tenacious roots deep into me. How often ignorance is a blessing; how often knowledge would make the step falter and the heart quail!
XXIV. BLACKLOCK ATTENDS FAMILY PRAYERS
During dinner I bore the whole burden of conversation—though burden I did not find it. Like most close-mouthed men, I am extremely talkative. Silence sets people to wondering and prying; he hides his secrets best who hides them at the bottom of a river of words. If my spirits are high, I often talk aloud to myself when there is no one convenient. And how could my spirits be anything but high, with her sitting there opposite me, mine, mine for better or for worse, through good and evil report—my wife!
She was only formally responsive, reluctant and brief in answers, volunteering nothing. The servants waiting on us no doubt laid her manner to shyness; I understood it, or thought I did—but I was not troubled. It is as natural for me to hope as to breathe; and with my knowledge of character, how could I take seriously the moods and impulses of one whom I regarded as a childlike girl, trained to false pride and false ideals? “She has chosen to stay with me,” said I to myself. “Actions count, not words or manner. A few days or weeks, and she will be herself, and mine.” And I went gaily on with my efforts to interest her, to make her smile and forget the role she had commanded herself to play. Nor was I wholly unsuccessful. Again and again I thought I saw a gleam of interest in her eyes or the beginnings of a smile about that sweet mouth of hers. I was careful not to overdo my part.
As soon as we finished dessert I said: “You loathe cigar smoke, so I'll hide myself in my den. Sanders will bring you the cigarettes.” I had myself telephoned for a supply of her kind early in the day.