“Because she’s not unhappy,” thought Mrs. Russell. “She hasn’t anything at all, as far as I can see, and yet she’s not unhappy. Perhaps I’m as much a failure as she is. I meant to help him—to make him happy. But he’s miserable. I’ve done the best I can; I can’t do any more. It’s as if his heart was breaking. Why? He has a good salary. I’ve only taken just enough to keep his home as he likes it. He has plenty for his clothes and whatever else he wants. I thought—I made him—happy.”
Not one minute more could she endure this soft, dark silence; she wanted to get into the house, in the lamplight, safely shut into her home, away from the vast summer night.
“What time is it, Geordie?” she asked, so suddenly that he started.
“Nine,” he replied.
“But what watch is that?”
“A new one.”
“Then where’s the one they gave you at the office, Geordie? Such a handsome one, Louie! A present to him on his twenty-fourth birthday. Engraved. Geordie, I hope you haven’t left it about, anywhere. It’s not a thing to be careless with.”
“No; it’s safe,” he said, briefly.
“Where? In your room?”
“It’s perfectly safe!” he answered, with such a note of exasperation in his voice that Louie pitied him.