Eleanor listened. Her breath came in a sob. Then she went to answer the door. Richard was there with a book. He stood for a few minutes and talked, then he sat down at the piano and opened the volume upon the rack.
"I have exactly thirty minutes to stay," said he. "Shall we play?"
Eleanor sat down beside him, her hands like ice. As well play as sit, dumbly.
When he had gone, she went to her mother's closed door. She did not mean to persist in her inquiries, her soft "Mother!" asked only for pardon. But Mrs. Bent made no answer. She was, however, not asleep; she believed, lying exhausted in her little iron bed, that at last, after years of fierce guarding of her tongue, she had done for herself.
CHAPTER XIII RICHARD WRITES A NOTE
Mrs. Lister was relieved in mind when, from day to day, Richard said no more about the choice of a profession. What he was to be was not as important as what he was not to be. Having given up so easily his own plans, he would, she was certain, agree with whatever plans might be made for him. He had never disobeyed in his life and he would not disobey now. She thought with comfort of his acquiescent years.
It was true that he seemed to be taking a little time to recover from the defeat of his plans, but that was only natural. He went quietly about the house, spending most of the day in his own room. When he was away for a whole afternoon, he was of course with Thomasina. His mother determined not even to ask where he had been. She smoothed his bed with the tenderest of touches, she fetched and carried, she consulted with 'Manda about the viands which he liked best.
The summer took on once more its normal character. The Waltonville ladies gave their little parties and Mrs. Scott discovered or invented new devices for the showing-up of their ignorance. She had always been tiresome to Mrs. Lister and this summer she became intolerable. She patterned her conversation after that of Utterly, happy to give rein to an inborn tendency to gossip and to make the most of the small foibles of her acquaintances, a tendency which association with Thomasina and Mrs. Lister had somewhat curbed.