“Didn’t I tell you?” Her voice, repressed, carried the threat of tears. “Didn’t I tell you how it would be? Didn’t I say that you’d be sorry if you called the railroad in?”
“Must we go over this again?” asked her husband.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me make a goose of myself?” She was remembering that there had been no protest, no surprise from Innes. She knew! A family secret! She shrugged. “I’m glad, on the whole, that you planned it as a surprise. For I carried it off as if we’d not been insulted, disgraced.”
“Gerty!” expostulated Hardin.
“Gerty!” implored Innes.
“And we are in for a nice friendly dinner!”
“Are you quite finished?” Hardin got up.
As the three passed out of the dining-room, Rickard caught their several expressions: Hardin’s stiff, indifferent; Gerty’s brilliant but hard, as she flashed a finished, brave little smile in his direction. The sister’s bow was distinctly haughty.
In the hall, Gerty’s laugh rippled out. It was the laugh Rickard remembered, the light frivolous cadence which recalled the flamboyant pattern of the Holmes’ parlor carpet, the long, crowded dining-table where Gerty had reigned. It told him that she was indifferent to his coming, as she meant it should. And it turned him back to a dark corner in the honeysuckle draped porch where he had spent so many evenings with her, where once he had held her hand, where he told her that he loved her. For he had loved her, or at least he thought he had! And had run away from her expectant eyes. A cad, was he, because he had brought that waiting look into her eyes, and had run from it?
Should a man ask a woman to give her life into his keeping until he is quite sure that he wants it? He was revamping his worn defense. Should he live up to a minute of surrender, of tenderness, if the next instant brings sanity, and disillusionment? He could bury now forever self-reproach. He could laugh at his own vanity. Gerty Hardin, it was easy to see, had forgotten what he had whispered to Gerty Holmes. They met as sober old friends. That ghost was laid.