“Well—” said Frank again, in the same indulgent tone.
Mrs. Holland went on down the stairs to the basement, so angry that her knees trembled. Frank was delighted with that silly girl’s impertinent pretense of sympathy, charmed by her sidelong glances and her self-conscious smiles!
“It’s his vanity,” she thought. “He’s always been like that. Any one could flatter him.”
There was no denying that Frank liked flattery. In his younger days he used to come home and tell her, in the most artless way, of the various compliments he had received. He didn’t do that now, for he was older and wiser; but that didn’t mean that he got no more compliments, or that he had ceased to relish them. He was a remarkably likable fellow. If this girl so brazenly pursued him the first time she met him, there were probably others—
This was so arresting a thought that Madeline stopped halfway down the stairs. After all, how little she knew of Frank’s life outside his home! They were old-fashioned people. He seldom mentioned business affairs to his wife. That was his province, and the home was hers. There was a wall between them—a high wall.
It hadn’t been like that at first. She could remember very well the time when Frank used to talk to her about his business, when she had known the names of all his most important customers and had taken an anxious interest in all his “big deals,” even reading the market reports. Of course, when Joyce was born, everything had changed. She had been absorbed in her baby. That was natural and right, wasn’t it?
But perhaps Frank hadn’t changed when Madeline did. She began to remember more and more of him in those early days. Here, up and down these very stairs, he used to tramp, carrying the tiny Joyce on his shoulders, both of them filling the house with their laughter. In that basement dining room how many makeshift meals he had eaten, so cheerfully, because she and Hilda were both busy with the baby! He had always been so good-tempered about being put aside, so glad and willing to help, so interested in every detail about the marvelous baby!
She had depended upon Frank very much in those days. Then, as she grew older and more competent, she had needed him less and less, and he had been shut out of such domestic concerns. That was right, wasn’t it? A man ought not to be bothered by household matters. He had his work, and she had hers.
“But Joyce belonged to both of us,” she thought. “He always loved her so! He misses her, too.”
A great fear seized her. Frank missed Joyce. He was lonely, and in the moment of his loneliness this pretty young creature had appeared, to flatter and interest him. He was middle-aged and lonely, and Stella’s daughter was so pretty! Suppose this wasn’t a ridiculous and exasperating episode, but a serious thing? Suppose she lost Frank?