"But wouldn’t you like to help me? Things are so muddled and wasteful at home now. If I had a wife like you, Angelica, to manage there for me, while I’m away! I need you so much!"
"Oh, deary!" she cried. "Please don’t! I’m so sorry, but I just can’t!"
He drove silently for a long time, until the lights of that home of his—named with such Eddie-like pomposity—came into view. Then he said, quite serenely and kindly:
"I’ll be your friend, anyway, Angelica—always!"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I
Angelica saw no one that night; but when she passed by the library, the door was half open and she heard voices in there—an unusual thing for that unsociable family.
Eddie went with her to the door of her room and wished her a good night, but she did not have one. She slept fitfully, and she had heart-breaking dreams. She felt confused and unhappy, awake or asleep. She couldn’t shake off that dull remorse, or a certain sense of great loss which haunted her.
She got up early, hoping that she might find Vincent and talk to him, and arrange with him to put an end to this wretched, intolerable situation. She couldn’t go on like this, in Eddie’s house, meeting him every day. She felt sure that Vincent must feel this as she did, or perhaps still more bitterly. She looked forward to it as an exquisite relief, to pour out her heart to him, sure of his apprehension; sure, too, that he would admire her fine feeling.
She was surprised, when she reached the breakfast-room, to see them all at the table together—Polly and Mrs. Russell up and dressed hours before their usual time; the doctor serious; Vincent in a neat dark suit and a new air of decorum. He glanced up as Angelica entered, and smiled, casually, the meaningless smile of his mother; then his eyes turned away. It wasn’t a ruse; he wasn’t pretending to be indifferent; she could see that he really was so.