“I didn’t know.” How easily, how possessively, this other woman spoke her husband’s name.
“It began at once.” To Margaret, with her inherited delicacy and reticence, there was something repellent in this barbaric simplicity of emotion.
“But you must have known that he was married,” she observed coldly.
“Yes, I knew, but I could see, of course, that you did not understand him.”
“And you think that you do?” If it were not tragic, how amusing it would be to think of her simple George as a problem!
“Oh, I realize that it appears very sudden to you; but in the emotions time counts for so little. Just living with a person for twenty years doesn’t enable one to understand him, do you think?”
“I suppose not. But do you really imagine,” she asked in what struck her as a singularly impersonal tone for so intimate a question, “that George is complex?”
The flame, which was revealed now as the illumination of some secret happiness, flooded Rose Morrison’s features. As she leaned forward, with clasped hands, Margaret noticed that the girl was careless about those feminine details by which George declared so often that he judged a woman. Her hair was carelessly arranged; her finger nails needed attention; and beneath the kimonolike garment, a frayed place showed at the back of her stocking. Even her red morocco slippers were run down at the heels; and it seemed to Margaret that this physical negligence had extended to the girl’s habit of thought.
“He is so big, so strong and silent, that it would take an artist to understand him,” answered Rose Morrison passionately. Was this really, Margaret wondered, the way George appeared to the romantic vision?
“Yes, he is not a great talker,” she admitted. “Perhaps if he talked more, you might find him less difficult.” Then before the other could reply, she inquired sharply, “Did George tell you that he was misunderstood?”