“My own great trouble?”
“I heard of it indirectly—through Miss Franklin. She mentioned it to some one I know. She said that your wife”—Mrs. Hamilton dropped her voice, and ended with the greatest delicacy: “That your wife has left you. I am so sorry!”
“Nothing of the sort!” Andrew began angrily.
Then it occurred to him that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to explain so modern a situation to so romantic a creature; so instead he encouraged her to tell him her own sad story.
He never learned what her trouble was, because she didn’t tell him. “My husband” and “a woman’s sensitive heart,” and “disgusting intoxication,” had something to do with it. She cried forlornly, and he tried to stop her. Common sense and all that he had learned from experience of her type warned him not to be too sympathetic, but it was difficult. She was exquisite. She had a sort of morbid charm about her—a sensibility at once dangerous and pitiful.
He rose, went over to her, and laid his hand on her shoulder.
“It’s hard,” he said. “Life is bound to be hard for people like you; but you must try to see it in a more robust way, with more humor, more indifference.[Pg 10]”
“I do! No one knows how I try!” she said, looking up into his face with her dark eyes, luminous with tears.
Suddenly the door opened, without warning. Miss Franklin looked in, and disappeared again. Mrs. Hamilton rose.
“Who was that?” she asked.