Lydia was impressed by the pontifical sound of this, though she ventured faintly: “Well, but does progress always mean broadcloth and cut glass?”
“We have the wherewithal to cultivate our minds!” said Paul, laughing again. “Weren’t the complete works of the American essayists among our wedding presents!” He referred to an old joke between them, at which Lydia laughed loyally, and the talk went on lightly until the meal was over.
As they walked away from the table together Lydia said to herself, “Now—now—” but Paul began to laugh as he told an incident of Madeleine’s light-hearted, high-handed tyranny over her elderly fiancé, and it seemed impossible for Lydia to bring out her story of mean and ugly tragedy.
As usual the evening was a lively one. Some acquaintances from the “younger married set” of Bellevue dropped in for a game of cards, Madeleine and “old Pete” Lowdor came out to talk over the plans for their new handsome house at the end of the street and at Paul’s suggestion Lydia hastily got together a chafing-dish supper for the impromptu party which prolonged itself with much laughter and many friendly wranglings over trumps and “post-mortems” until after midnight. Paul was in the highest of gay spirits as he stood with his pretty wife on the porch, calling good-nights to his guests disappearing down the starlit driveway. He inhaled the odor of success sweet and strong in his nostrils.
As they looked back into the house, they saw the faithful Ellen clearing away the soiled dishes, her large, white, disease-scarred face impassive over her immaculate and correct maid’s dress.
“Isn’t she a treasure!” cried the master of the house. “To sit up to this hour!” He started, “What’s that?”
From the shadow of the house a slim lad’s figure shambled out into the driveway. As he passed the porch where Paul stood, one strong arm protectingly about Lydia, he looked up and the light from the open door struck full on a white, purposeless, vacant smile. The upward glance lost for him the uncertain balance of his wavering feet. He reeled, flung up his arms and pitched with drunken soddenness full length upon the gravel, picking himself up clumsily with a sound of incoherent, weak lament. “Why, it’s a drunken man—in our driveway!” cried Paul, with proprietary indignation. “Get out of here!” he yelled angrily at the intruder’s retreating back. When he turned again to Lydia he saw that one of her lightning-swift changes of mood had swept over her. He was startled at her pale face and burning, horrified eyes, and remembering her condition with apprehension, picked her up bodily and carried her up the stairs to their bedroom, soothing her with reassuring caresses.
There, sitting on the edge of their bed, her loosened hair falling about her white face, holding fast to her husband’s hands, Lydia told him at last; hesitating and stumbling because in her blank ignorance she knew no words even to hint at what she feared—she told him who Patsy was, the blue-eyed, fifteen-year-old boy, just over from Ireland, ignorant of the world as a child of five, easily led, easily shamed, by his fear of appearing rustic, into any excess—and then she told him what the boy’s grandmother had told her about Ellen. It was a milestone in their married life, her turning to him more intimately than she would have done to her mother, her breaking down the walls of her lifelong maiden’s reserve and ignorance. She finished with her face hidden in his breast. What should she do? What could she do?
Paul took her into the closest embrace, kissed her shut eyes in a passion of regret that she should have learned the evil in the world, of relieved belittling of the story, Lydia’s portentous beginning of which had quite startled him, and of indignation at “Mrs. O’Hern’s foul mouth—for you can just be sure, darling Lydia, that it’s all nothing but rowings among the servants. Probably Ellen won’t let Mrs. O’Hern take her usual weekly perquisite of sugar and tea. Servants are always quarreling and the only way to do is to keep out of their lies about each other and let them fight it out themselves. You never can have any idea of who’s telling the truth if you butt in and try to straighten it, and the Lord knows that Ellen’s too good a cook and too much needed in this family until the new member arrives safely, to hurt her feelings with investigating any of Mrs. O’Hern’s yarns. Just you refuse to listen to servants’ gossip. If you’d been a little less of a darling, inexperienced school-girl, you’d have cut off such talk at the first words. Just you take my word for it, you dear, you sweetheart, you best of—” he ran on into ardent endearments, forgetting the story himself, blinding and dazzling Lydia with the excitement which always swept her away in those moments when Paul was her passionate, youthful lover.
She tried to revert to the question once or twice later, but now Paul alternated between shaming her laughingly for her gullibility and making fun of her “countrified” interest in the affairs of her servants. “But, Paul, Mrs. O’Hern says that Patsy doesn’t want to drink and—and go to those awful houses—his father died of it—only Ellen makes him, by—”