One morning something occurred to Mrs. Sharpe. It was simply that her husband had spent every evening at home for a week. She was in the nursery when the thought struck her, rocking slowly in her low sewing-chair, holding the baby on one arm and trying to darn stockings with the other.
Pauline was—she did not really know where. Was not that her voice upon the porch? The rocking-chair stopped sharply, and Harrie looked down through the blinds. The Doctor's horse was tied at the gate. The Doctor sat fanning himself with his hat in one of the garden chairs; Miss Dallas occupied the other; she was chatting, and twisting her golden wools about her fingers,—it was noticeable that she used only golden wools that morning; her dress was pale blue, and the effect of the purples would not have been good.
"I thought your calls were going to take till dinner, Myron," called
Harrie, through the blinds.
"I thought so too," said Myron, placidly, "but they do not seem to.
Won't you come down?"
Harrie thanked him, saying, in a pleasant nonchalant way, that she could not leave the baby. It was almost the first bit of acting that the child had ever been guilty of,—for the baby was just going to sleep, and she knew it.
She turned away from the window quietly. She could not have been angry, and scolded; or noisy, and cried. She put little Harrie into her cradle, crept upon the bed, and lay perfectly still for a long time.
When the dinner-bell rang, and she got up to brush her hair, that absent, apathetic look of which I have spoken had left her eyes. A stealthy brightness came and went in them, which her husband might have observed if he and Miss Dallas had not been deep in the Woman question. Pauline saw it; Pauline saw everything.
"Why did you not come down and sit with us this morning?" she asked, reproachfully, when she and Harrie were alone after dinner. "I don't want your husband to feel that he must run away from you to entertain me."
"My husband's ideas of hospitality are generous," said Mrs. Sharpe. "I have always found him as ready to make it pleasant here for my company as for his own."
She made this little speech with dignity. Did both women know it for the farce it was? To do Miss Dallas justice,—I am not sure. She was not a bad-hearted woman. She was a handsome woman. She had come to Lime to enjoy herself. Those September days and nights were fair there by the dreamy sea. On the whole I am inclined to think that she did not know exactly what she was about.