He looked at her anxiously, but he knew from the way she set her heels down that remonstrance would be useless.
“Don’t stay long,” he said, in a tone of habitual tenderness. He loved her passionately, in spite of the lasting hurt she had given him when she parted him from his mother. It was a hurt that had sunk deeper than even he realized. It lay heavy on his heart day and night. It took the blue out of the sky, and the green out of the grass, and the gold out of the sunlight; it took the exaltation and the rapture out of his tenderest moments of love.
He never reproached her, he never really blamed her; certainly he never pitied himself. But he carried a heavy heart around with him, and his few smiles were joyless things.
For the trouble he blamed only himself. He had promised Emarine solemnly before he married her that if there were any “knuckling-down” to be done, his mother should be the one to do it. He had made the promise deliberately, and he could no more have broken it than he could have changed the color of his eyes. When bitter feeling arises between two relatives by marriage, it is the one who stands between them—the one who is bound by the tenderest ties to both—who has the real suffering to bear, who is torn and tortured until life holds nothing worth the having.
Orville Palmer was the one who stood between. He had built his own cross, and he took it up and bore it without a word.
Emarine hurried through the early winter dark until she came to the small and poor house where her husband’s mother lived. It was off the main-traveled street.
There was a dim light in the kitchen; the curtain had not been drawn. Emarine paused and looked in. The sash was lifted six inches, for the night was warm, and the sound of voices came to her at once. Mrs. Palmer had company.
“It’s Miss Presly,” said Emarine, resentfully, under her breath. “Old gossip!”
“—goin’ to have a fine dinner, I hear,” Miss Presly was saying. “Turkey with oyster dressin’, an’ cranberries, an’ mince an’ pun’kin pie, an’ reel plum puddin’ with brandy poured over ’t an’ set afire, an’ wine dip, an’ nuts, an’ raisins, an’ wine itself to wind up on. Emarine’s a fine cook. She knows how to get up a dinner that makes your mouth water to think about. You goin’ to have a spread, Mis’ Parmer?”
“Not much of a one,” said Orville’s mother. “I expected to, but I c’u’dn’t get them fall patatas sold off. I’ll have to keep ’em till spring to git any kind o’ price. I don’t care much about Christmas, though”—her chin was trembling, but she lifted it high. “It’s silly for anybody but childern to build so much on Christmas.”