When she had finished her meal, she read her letter with a fine show of indifference. “He sets a date for the drive.” She put the letter carelessly into her pocket before her husband could stretch out his hand. It would never do for jealous Tom to read that: “Your letter was received two weeks ago. Pardon me for appearing to have forgotten your kindness.”
“The nerve,” growled Tom again, his mouth full of Gerty’s omelet. “To take you up on an invitation like that. I call that pretty raw.”
“You must remember we are such old friends,” urged his wife. “He knew I meant it seriously.”
“Just the same, it’s nerve,” grumbled Hardin, helping himself to more of the omelet, now a flat ruin in the center of the Canton platter. His resentment had taken on an edge of hatred since the episode of the dredge machinery. “To write to any one in my house! He knows what I think of him; an ineffectual ass, that’s what he is. Blundering around with his little levees, and his fool work on the water-tower.”
“The water-tower?” demanded his sister. “What’s he doing with that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” rejoined Tom largely, his lips protruding. He had been itching to ask some one what Rickard was up to. Twice, he had seen him go up, with MacLean and Estrada. Once, there was a large flare of light. But he wouldn’t ask! Some of his fool tinkering!
His sister’s gaze rested on him with concern. He had too little to do. She guessed that his title, consulting engineer, was a mocking one, that his chief, at least, did not consult him. Was it true, what she had heard, that he had made a fluke about the machinery? He was looking seedy. He had been letting his clothes go. He looked like a man who has lost grip; who has been shelved.
She knew he was sleeping badly. Every morning now she found the couch rumpled. Not much pretense of marital congeniality. Things were going badly, there—
“Everybody has accepted,” Gerty was saying. “They have been waiting for me to set the date.”
“And you cater to him, let him dangle you all. I wonder why you do it, unless it’s to hurt me.”