He looked puzzled but solicitous. “I’m afraid I must be off. If you are not tired, could you manage to go over these galleys this afternoon? I’d like to read the last chapter aloud to you after the corrections are made.” He had written a book on the history of law; and while he drew the roll of proof sheets from his pocket, she remembered, with a pang as sharp as the stab of a knife, all the work of last summer when they had gathered material together. He needed her for his work, she realized, if not for his pleasure. She stood, as she had always done, for the serious things of his life. This book could not have been written without her. Even his success in his profession had been the result of her efforts as well as his own.
“I’m never too tired for that,” she responded, and though she smiled up at him, it was a smile that hurt her with its irony.
“Well, my time’s up,” he said. “By the way. I’ll need my heavier golf things if it is fine to-morrow.” To-morrow was Sunday, and he played golf with a group of men at the Country Club every Sunday morning.
“They are in the cedar closet. I’ll get them out.”
“The medium ones, you know. That English tweed.”
“Yes, I know. I’ll have them ready,” Did Rose Morrison play golf, she wondered.
“I’ll try to get back early to dinner. There was a button loose on the waistcoat I wore last evening. I forgot to mention it this morning.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I left it to the servants, but I’ll look after it myself.” Again this perverse humour seized her. Had he ever asked Rose Morrison to sew on a button?
At the door he turned back. “And I forgot to ask you this morning to order flowers for Morton’s funeral. It is to be Monday.”
The expression on her face felt as stiff as a wax mask, and though she struggled to relax her muscles, they persisted in that smile of inane cheerfulness. “I’ll order them at once, before I begin the galleys,” she answered.