Just then she heard a noise of some one entering the next room and the sound of the closing of the door. Then came loud voices in dispute. Anna and her husband were talking about something that had evidently made them angry. The voices came nearer and she heard Anna say distinctly:
“You are very unreasonable. You ought to be proud to have her here.”
“Yes, that’s what you say; but I’m not. You keep on telling me of the honor your ‘gracious and noble Comtesse’ is doing us by being here. But I don’t see it. After slaving all these years to be my own master, do you think I’m going to be a servant again? And yet that’s just what I’m being driven to. Since she came I am compelled to eat my meals where I won’t be in the way of your ‘precious lamb.’ I am not allowed to talk loudly; I can’t have my friends visit me and enjoy a bottle of wine; I must be always dressed up and keep on my best behavior—and in my own house, too. I never heard of such a thing. I can’t smoke my pipe except in a back room, and as for my wife, why I see so little of you now that I might just as well never be married.”
“Anton, you must not shout like that.”
“Not shout! Why not? Isn’t this my house? I don’t care who hears me. I’d just as soon tell her if she were here. Before she came I was as happy and proud as a duke. Here we’ve been working all these years—for what? For our home. And now that we’ve got it—where is it? Not in this place. When I want my wife, you are fussing with the ‘gracious Comtesse’; when I ask you to come for a walk, you tell me ‘Lady Helène needs me’; when I want to talk with her, you tell me I don’t know how to talk to a noble lady. What do you think I am—a stone, a fool, or a man? I’m sick of it all. I want our old life back again—I want my wife—my home.”
“Anton, you are beside yourself. Don’t you know the poor girl has no one except us to help her?”
“Well, let her do as other girls do—let her marry a decent fellow and have her own home. I don’t mind her visiting us—but I don’t keep a hotel!”
When Helène had realized that it was she who was the cause of their quarrel, her weakness became such that she lost the power of movement, and collapsed in the chair. She tried to cry out in an effort to make them aware of her presence in the house, but her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth—she could but sit helpless and listen.
She heard Anna weeping and saying bitter words to her husband. How he must have resented her coming that he, a man usually so mild and gentle, should have been roused to such anger. She heard a violent slamming of a door followed by the sound of quick, heavy treads down the stairs, and then, a deadly silence.
So this was to be the end! An adverse fate must be pursuing her. Wherever she went unhappiness followed. Even those who would befriend her suffered because of her.