Dora left her mother-in-law that morning with a sense of humility, a sense also of disgust at herself for her own stupidity. All these months a thing as beautiful as this great love and tenderness had been in front of her eyes, and she had not troubled to look at it with enough attention to recognize that there was beauty there. But now the tears that dimmed her own eyes quickened her vision. At last she saw the picture in its true value, and it made her ashamed. Was she equally blind, too, with regard to Claude? Was there something in him, some great thing which mattered so much that all which for months had got on her nerves more and more every day was, if seen truly, as trivial as she now saw were those things that had blinded her in the case of Lady Osborne? It might be so; all she knew was that if it was there, she had not troubled to look for it. At first she had so loved his beauty that nothing else mattered; nor did it seem to her possible that love could ever be diminished or suffer eclipse. But that had happened, even before she had borne a child to him; and to take its place (and more than take its place) there had sprung up no herbs of more fragrant beauty than the scarlet of that first flower. She had nothing in her garden for him but herbs of bitterness and resentment. That, at least, was all she knew of till now.
She paused a moment outside the door of the sitting room where she had left him, before entering, for she knew his devotion to his mother, and was sorry for him. And somehow she felt herself unable to believe that Lady Osborne’s optimistic forecast would be justified; she did not think that in a few hours they would be all laughing over her imaginary ailment. And Claude must see that she was anxious; it would be better to confess to that, and prepare him for the possibility of there being something serious in store.
He looked up quickly as she came in, throwing away the cigarette he had only just begun.
“Well?” he said.
Dora heard the tremble and trouble in that one word, and she was sorry for him. That particular emotion she had never felt for him before; she had never seen him except compassed about with serene prosperity.
“Claude, I’m afraid she is ill,” she said. “She feels it herself too. She has been in great pain.”
“But how long has it been going on?” he asked. “Why hasn’t she seen a doctor?”
“Because she didn’t want to spoil things for us. She thought she could hold on. But she is going now, to-day.”
“What does she think it is?” asked he.
“She wouldn’t talk of it at all,” said Dora. “I think she could hardly think of it, because she was thinking of Dad so much. She won’t come down to Grote, you see, but stop up here, unless she is told it is nothing. And so we must do our best that he shan’t be anxious or unhappy until we know whether there is real cause or not. She wants me particularly to go down there, or of course I would stop with her.”