But her own words and her husband’s words had no meaning at all this morning. She had always hoped that Joyce would marry. Nick was a dear boy, and Joyce would be happy with him. If Joyce were happy, she, too, ought to be happy.
“Only—oh, I’m a selfish woman!” she thought. “A selfish, selfish woman! For I can’t be happy—not without my child, my baby, my one child. I don’t want to live without my child!”
Frank was speaking. She did not hear his words, for his voice sounded faint and far off, but she was grateful to him for his kindliness, and she looked up into his face with a smile.
He patted her shoulder.
“I know, old girl, I know,” he said.[Pg 411] “I’m sorry! Well, I’ll be off, now—some things to see about.”
She heard him go out of the room, and heard his heavy tread on the stairs. Halfway up the flight he stopped, and struck a match, and the scent of tobacco smoke drifted down to her. He had “things to see about”—he had his business, his many friends, his club. His life would go on as usual, but hers was ended. Her work was done.
She got up and crossed the room to the battered old high chair that had been Joyce’s. For a moment she thought she would sink on her knees before it, press her lips against the rung where scuffling little feet had worn away the paint, close her eyes, and let the black and bitter tide of pain close over her head; but the hour had not come yet. Joyce still needed her for a few hours more.
III
There was the strangeness of a dream about it. Madeline Holland stood there and smiled and chatted with her guests, and nobody looked at her curiously, nobody suspected her anguish. It was incredible, inhuman, unreal.
There was a slight confusion in the hall. Looking across the crowded room, she saw the chauffeur and another young fellow bringing down Joyce’s trunks to the car that waited outside. It was over. Joyce was married—only it didn’t seem real yet.