But he had not liked such public demonstrations.
“I loved her, though,” he thought. “I was happy.”
He did not want to remember all that. It was intolerable to remember, in his bitterness, those warm, glowing years of love and delight; and yet it seemed to him that it would be wrong and cowardly to shirk the memory, to shut his mind to any of the vivid little pictures that rose before him. He closed his eyes, to see more clearly, and let the full tide of the old pain rush over him. He was a man, and he could bear it. He must bear it.
Katherine had spoiled everything. As he got on in the world, he had had to live differently, and she would not help him. Once he had asked Crisson and his wife to dinner. He was not a partner then, and it was an important occasion for him; but Katherine took it with her usual careless good humor. When her guests arrived, she was not dressed. After a very awkward wait of nearly half an hour, down she came, laughing and lovely—and untidy.
Blakie saw her through the Crisson’s eyes that night. He got a fresh view of things to which he had grown almost accustomed—Madge’s casual fashion of waiting, and the badly ironed napkins.
After dinner she sat down at the piano and sang for them, and her coil of shining hair came loose and slipped down. Mrs. Crisson, with a tight smile, rose and put the pins in firmly, while Katherine went on singing.
They had their first real quarrel that night.
“Can’t you do your hair decently?” he said. “Mrs. Crisson—”
“And her with a wisp of hair that looks like nothing at all!” Katherine cried indignantly.
“That’s not the point,” he told her, but she would not listen, and they said cruel things to each other.