For a long time after he had left the house Nannie sat there, her breakfast untasted, her elbows resting on the table, her hands clasped under her chin. She was not looking at the violets, but their subtle fragrance permeated her thought as it were. Never in all her life before had she been treated in this way; never before had she known of anything of this kind outside the covers of a book. She was not conscious of shame, sorrow, or even regret; she was simply stupid with wonder.
She got up by-and-by and walked toward the parlor, but looking back to the table she saw the violets still lying beside her plate. She hesitated a moment, then took them up and carried them to a vase in the next room, but in the midst of arranging them there she impulsively turned to a magazine near at hand, slipped them into this, and then tucked the book away, coloring the while like a girl detected with her first love letter.
“It wasn't so dreadful what I did,” she muttered, to reinstate herself. “It didn't matter about the radishes, anyhow. They were so old it would have been disrespectful to eat them.”
But she felt badly, nevertheless, as she caught up her hat, which lay upon the sofa just where she had thrown it the night before, and started off to Constance Chance's.
Something was stirred within her, and she felt uneasy with a restlessness that inclined her to seek a friend.
A friend! She had not one in the world. Of all the women she knew, Constance Chance claimed the most of her respect and admiration, but Constance was wholly unaware of this feeling, and moreover, did not like Nannie. In old days she tolerated her and was even attracted by her beauty, but she had warmly resented her marriage to Steve—whom she regarded as deserving a wife far superior to Nannie. She had, as is the custom of women in such cases, leaped to the conclusion that either Nannie had made advances to Steve—which he was too delicate and kind-hearted to repel—or that she had in some way excited his pity, and he had married her in order to protect and care for her, and she held it as a grudge against her. That a man like Steve could be attracted by such a girl as Nannie was inconceivable to Constance, although Randolph regarded the matter differently.
When she found that the marriage really was to take place she resolved to make the best of it, but it was not long before she decided that Steve was unhappy, and then her smouldering dissatisfaction broke into such a lively flame that Randolph was obliged to interpose to prevent her from taking Nannie in hand.
“There, there, sweetheart,” he said. “Don't get wrought up about it. I'm afraid you'd only make matters worse. Better let them rest as they are. We're not certain that it's so. Steve's a queer fellow.”
“I know he's unhappy!” Constance exclaimed. “It's not necessary for him to speak. There is a silence that is eloquent; then his looks have changed. There's something so pathetic about his whole bearing.”
“Yes, I've noticed that. Poor old man! Well, we can't help it. These aren't matters for outsiders, my sweetheart—you know that even better than I do.”