“No,” said he. “I can’t stand seeing you so miserable!”
“But I’d be a hundred times more miserable if I thought I was doing you any harm!” said Edith.
As soon as the words were spoken, she realized that she had made a serious mistake, and tried hastily to remedy it.
“I’m really not miserable, Joe!” she cried. “Not a bit!”
He knew better, though. Without even having seen her, he was becoming acquainted with Edith’s aunt, and learning to appreciate her talent for making people miserable. Edith never told him about it. It wasn’t her habit to complain, but to any one who watched her as Hardy did, the thing was obvious.
One evening, when he was walking to the Subway with her, she had to stop in the drug store to buy a bottle of “nerve tonic” at two dollars a bottle.
“You don’t take that stuff, do you, Edith?” he had asked anxiously.
“Oh, no!” she replied. “It’s for Aunt Bessie. She’s in very poor health, you know.”
“What’s the matter with her?” Hardy bluntly inquired.
He did not fail to notice Edith’s troubled, face and rising color; and the answer that Aunt Bessie was “terribly nervous” seemed to him to explain a good deal.[Pg 152]