"I don't suppose anybody could be happy on politics," observed Miss Chris. "It doesn't seem natural." And she slowly added: "I wish some good woman would marry him."
"I don't!" said Eugenia sharply. She rose with a spring from the rug, and left Miss Chris to her reflections and her raisins. In her own room she sat down before the fire and loosened her hair from the low coil on her neck. She drew out the hairpins one by one, until her hands were full, and the thick black rope fell across her bosom. Then she tossed the pins upon her bureau and shook a veil over her face and shoulders. As she settled herself into her chair she glanced impatiently at the clock. Dudley was late, and she listened for his footsteps with the composure of a woman from whom the flush of marriage has passed away. His footsteps were as much a part of her days as the ticking of the clock upon the mantel. If the clock were to stop, she would miss the accustomed sound, but so long as it went on she was almost unconscious of its presence. Her affection for Dudley had grown so into her nature that it was like the claim of kinship—quiet, unimpassioned, full of service—the love that is the end of many happy marriages, the beginning of few.
As she sat there she fell vaguely to wondering what her lot would have been had her pulses fluttered to his footsteps as they came and went. She would have known remorseless waitings and the long agony of jealous nights—all the passionate self-torture that she had missed—that she had missed, thank God! She made the best of her life to-day, as she would have made the best of blows and bruises. It was the old buoyant instinct of the Battle blood—the fighting of Fate on its ground with its own weapons. She had insisted strenuously upon her own happiness—and she had found it not in the great things of life, but in the little ones. She was happy because happiness is ours in the cradle or not at all—because it is of the blood and not of the environment.
During the first years of her marriage she had intensely sought the relief of outside interests. She had worked zealously on hospital boards and had exhausted herself in the service of the city mission. Then a new call had quivered in her life, and she had let these things go. With the passion of her nature she had pledged herself to motherhood, and that, too, had foiled her—for the child had died. Looking back upon the years she saw that those months of tranquil waiting were the happiest of her life—those monotonous months when each day was as the day before it, when her hands were busy for the love that would come to her, and her heart warmed itself before the future. The child was hers for a single week, and afterwards she had put her grief away and gone back to the old beginning. She had given herself to little kindnesses and trivial interests, for the fulfilment of her nature had withered in the bud.
The key turned in the door downstairs and in a moment she heard Dudley in the hall. As her door opened she looked up brightly. "Up, old girl?" he asked cheerfully, and as he came to the fire he bent to kiss her.
"Did you make a speech? and what did you say?" she inquired.
"Oh, they got a good deal out of me," he responded with a genial recollection which he proceeded to unfold. His eyes shone and his face was flushed. As he stood on the hearth rug before her she admitted with a sigh of satisfaction his physical splendour. The glow of his personality warmed her into an emotion half maternal. She regarded him with the eyes of tolerant affection.
"Oh, yes, I think I made a friend of Diggs," he was adding complacently as he flecked a particle of cigar ash from his coat. "He got off a capital story, by the way. I'd give it to you, but I'm half afraid—you're so squeamish."
"His jokes don't amuse me," returned Eugenia indifferently. "Who else was there?"
"Well, the governor was very much there. He did some stiff talking. I say, Eugie, do you know, I believe he used to have a pretty strong fancy for you—didn't he?"