There were years and years of that. Even after they had two servants, the house was always a little untidy—not dirty, but with a disorderliness that tormented him. The meals were often late, and she herself was always late. Her friends were forever dropping in. They came to her with all their troubles, and she would lend them money, or give them warm-hearted, prejudiced advice, or just sit listening and crying gallons of tears over some sad tale. Then she would want to tell her husband all about it, and would grow angry at his lack of sympathy.
All this went on until there was nothing left but bitterness between them; and then she had gone away with the children and had written him a letter to say that she was not coming back.
He remembered that first night in the house. He had gone into her room, all in disorder from her packing, and then into the empty nursery, where Renie’s despised and ill-used rag doll sat in a broken rocking chair. If he could have seen Katherine then he would have begged her to come back; but when it came to writing a letter, that was a different matter. He had his pride to consider.
He had written briefly, asking her to come back for the sake of the children, and he had had an answer from her lawyer. He had not been sorry. Lonely as he was, there was an immense relief in that loneliness, and there was a dignity which had long been lacking. It was as if he had found his soul again.
Finished now all their life together; but life itself was not finished. Blakie was only forty-five, and there were years and years ahead of him.
He thought of Frances Deering, with the curious uneasiness that the thought of her always caused him. He couldn’t help knowing! She was very grave, very businesslike in her manner, but he couldn’t help knowing!
Sometimes, when he caught her looking at him, the honest, innocent admiration in her eyes gave him a thrill of pride and pleasure. At other times it troubled and irritated him. Twenty-two she was, not much more than a kid—a good girl, and a pretty one, but he was not interested in that sort of thing. He had loved Katherine with a love that would never come again, and he wanted no more of that.
Yet sometimes, in his hours of dejection and loneliness, he would think of the solace of an honest, faithful affection, of what it would mean to have some one waiting for him at home, some one to care if he were ill, a companion for his older years.
With an impatient frown he pushed away his papers and rose. He couldn’t work now.
As he went into the outer office he saw Frances sitting at her desk, with the little girls beside her, all of them busy cutting out rabbits from colored memorandum pads, and talking quietly together. Something in the sight displeased him. The girl’s fair head, as it bent down toward the children, had a meek look about it. Her quick and whole-hearted acceptance of all Blakie’s orders made him feel like a sort of sultan, a very lonely autocrat. He didn’t like that.