A year ago Oliver would have surrendered at once before the terror in her eyes; but in those twelve long months of effort, of hope, of balked ambition, of bitter questioning, and of tragic disillusionment, a new quality had developed in his character, and the generous sympathy of youth had hardened at thirty-four to the cautious cynicism of middle-age. It is doubtful if even he himself realized how transient such a state must be to a nature whose hidden springs were moved so easily by the mere action of change—by the effect of any alteration in the objects that surrounded him. Because the enthusiasm of youth was exhausted at the minute, it seemed to him that he had lost it forever. And to Virginia, who saw but one thing at a time and to whom that one thing was always the present instant, it seemed that the firm ground upon which she trod had crumbled beneath her.
"Well, if you want the truth," he said quietly (as if any mother ever wanted the truth about such a matter), "I think you make a mistake to spoil Harry as you do."
"But," she brought out the words with a pathetic quiver, "I treat him just as I do the others, and you never say anything about my spoiling them."
"Oh, the others are girls. Girls aren't so easily ruined somehow. They don't get such hard knocks later on, so it makes less difference about them."
As she sat there in bed, propped up on her elbow, which trembled violently against the pillows, with her cambric nightdress, trimmed only with a narrow band of crocheted lace, opened at her slender throat, and her hair, which was getting thin at the temples, drawn unbecomingly back from her forehead, she looked, indeed, as Oliver had thought, "at least ten years older than Abby." Though she was not yet thirty, the delicate, flower-like bloom of her beauty was already beginning to fade. The spirit which had animated her yesterday appeared to have gone out of her now. He thought how lovely she had been at twenty when he saw her for the first time after his return to Dinwiddie; and a sudden anger seized him because she was letting herself break, because she was so needlessly sacrificing her youth and her beauty.
An hour later she got up and dressed herself, with the feeling that she had not rested a minute during the night. Harry was listless and fretful when he awoke, and while she put on his clothes, she debated with herself whether or not she should summon old Doctor Fraser from around the corner. When his lesson hour came, he climbed into her lap and went to sleep with his hot little head on her shoulder, and though he seemed better by evening, she was still so anxious about him that she forgot that she had promised Abby to go with them to Atlantic City until Oliver came in at dusk and reminded her.
"Aren't you going, Virginia?" he inquired, as he hunted in the closet for his bag which she had not had time to pack.
"I can't, Oliver. Harry isn't well. He has been unlike himself all day, and I am afraid to leave him."
"He looks all right," he remarked, bending over the child in Virginia's lap. "Does anything hurt you, Harry?"
"He doesn't seem to know exactly what it is," answered Virginia, "but if he isn't well by morning, I'll send for Doctor Fraser."