Dinner came, the long, dreadful dinner, with the brilliant light glimmering in her face, and showing every expression there; with old Mr. Harper leaning forward to address her every time she relapsed into silence; with the consciousness upon her that there was no medium course, that she must talk and laugh, fast and recklessly, or else fall into tears; with the knowledge, worst of all, that there was one sitting at the bottom of the table whom she dared not look at, but whom nevertheless she perpetually saw.
Her husband had taken his usual place, and sustained it in his usual manner. There was the same brotherly chat with Mary and Eulalie, the same answers to his father, and when once, in the dinner-table courtesies, he addressed his wife, the tone was precisely as it had ever been.
Agatha could have shrieked back her answer, betraying him to all the household! This smooth outside of daily life—and with what below? It was horrible.
Yet she felt herself powerless to burst through it. His perfect silence, leaving his honour, the honour of both, in her hands, was like a chain of iron wrapped round her; however she writhed and dashed herself against it, there it was.
The Squire seemed to remain at table longer than ever to-day. He would not let his woman-kind depart. He had many toasts to give, and various old reminiscences to unfold to his daughter-in-law. She heard all in a misty dream, and kept on vaguely smiling. At last the purgatory was ended, and they rose.
Nathanael held the door open for his wife and sisters to retire—things went on so formally even in the every-day life at Kingcombe Holm. In passing, Agatha felt as if she must burst through that icy barrier he had drawn; she must meet her husband's look, and compel him to meet hers. She gave him a look, proud, threatening, yet full of hidden misery. He would surely answer that.
No! No response—not even anger. Some sorrow perhaps, but a sorrow that was stern, hopeless, undemonstrative, as was his own nature. If any wreck had been, it had already sank down into those deep waters, of which the surface appeared perpetually calm.
Agatha threw him back another look. Scorn was there and hatred—she felt as though she did really hate him at that moment. Her heart gave a leap, like a smitten deer, and then a “laughing devil” seemed to enter therein, and dash her on—anywhere—to anything.
“Come, Mary—come Eulalie, we must be very merry tonight, and my husband must join, for all his solemnity. Shake it off quick, Mr. Harper, or we'll call you a deciever—a smooth-faced, smiling cheat.”
Laughing out loud—she caught his hand, wrung it violently, and struck it aside.