“This house hasn’t many pleasant associations for me.”
He coloured as if she had caught him in a failure of tact. “I understand that. But with the young people here ... or next door ... she hoped you’d feel less lonely.”
Again she perceived that he was trying to remind her of a possible alternative, and again she let the allusion drop, answering merely: “I’m used to being lonely. It’s not as bad as people think.”
“You’ve known worse, you mean?” He seldom risked anything as direct as that. “And it would be worse for you, being with Anne after she’s married? You still hate the idea as much as ever?”
She rose impatiently and went to lean against the mantelpiece. “Fred, what’s the use? I shall never hate it less. But that’s all over—I’ve accepted it.”
“Yes, and made Anne so happy.”
“Oh, love is what is making Anne happy!” She hardly knew how she brought the word from her lips.
“Well—loving Fenno hasn’t made her cease to love you.”
“Anne is perfect. But suppose we talk of something else. At my age I find this bridal atmosphere a little suffocating. I shall go abroad again, probably—I don’t know.”
She turned and looked at herself in the glass above the mantel, seeing the gray streaks and the accusing crows’-feet. And as she stood there, she remembered how once, when she was standing in the same way before a mirror, Chris had come up behind her, and they had laughed at seeing their reflections kiss. How young she had been then—how young! Now, as she looked at herself, she saw behind her the reflection of Fred Landers’s comfortable bulk, sunk in an armchair in after-dinner repose, his shirt-front bulging a little, the lamplight varnishing the top of his head through the thinning hair. A middle-aged couple—perfectly suited to each other in age and appearance. She turned back and sat down beside him.