Quite involuntarily, the application leaped to her mind.
She had loved Vonnie to the limit of capacity. Her feeling for Nicholas did not extend even to the first outposts of that limit.
But she loved him, nevertheless. It was a question of degree.
Lily stifled the illuminating thought, accused herself of the extreme of disloyalty, and watched eagerly for signs in herself that she did love Nicholas. That he loved her, she could not doubt, and the thought filled her with remorseful gratitude. It still surprised and touched her that her husband, unlike her father, should so seldom find fault with her either directly or by implication, and that he should share and enjoy her enjoyment of almost every form of entertainment.
He listened, with obvious pleasure and interest, to everything she said, and no subject was too trivial for discussion. He seemed never to be blasé or indifferent. Occasionally, only, he was out of temper or depressed, when his already long face would become indescribably elongated, and his conversation monosyllabic.
Lily found that if she asked him a direct question, on such occasions, he would gravely and curtly reply: "Why should anything be the matter?" after the manner of a sulky child that desires to draw attention to its sulks but is too proud to give a reason for them. If she said nothing, he either recovered himself quickly, or spoke, with a sort of remote, detached condemnation, of the circumstance that had annoyed him. He never admitted to a trivial disturbance of mind, but sometimes, with transparent self-satisfaction, he would lay claim to outbursts of stupendous fury.
"I'm afraid I lost my temper pretty thoroughly to-day. The fellow won't try that game on again. He got my monkey up, and I let him have it straight. Hit out straight from the shoulder. I told him exactly what I thought of him, and you should have seen his face, Lily—the poor little devil was green. I don't remember, word for word, exactly what I said, but I fancy I let him have it pretty straight. I don't mince matters when my blood's up. Mind you, Lily, a temper like mine's no joke. I've always been afraid of going too far, one of these days."
He looked at her as though for confirmation, and she said, knowing that it would please him:
"It's a fault on the right side, I suppose. A man who hasn't got a temper doesn't get very far, I imagine."
"You're right there, my dear. I shouldn't be where I am now if I hadn't been able to put the fear of God into those who work for me, from time to time."