That his condition might become apparent to the sharp eyes which daily reviewed him, that it might require some cunning to conceal from his wife the aura of renewed hopes in which he walked, did not occur to him. If the evidences of excitement had been hers, if she had shown signs of interest in affairs unknown to him, he would have let her proceed, unquestioned and unmolested, glad in his secret soul that he did not have to know. But Mrs. Scott's position was different. She planned a gayer August than ever before, and such an expression of countenance as that brought by Dr. Scott to breakfast could have been inspired only by some small literary success.
Had the work which he had done been paid for? Mrs. Scott had long since lost interest in successes which were not accompanied by money, and since she had heard from Mr. Utterly of the prices paid for promising stories, she had despised in secret her husband's receipts. It seemed to her that now he must have achieved something worth while.
In his absence on one of his long walks, she visited his study and turned over his papers. But he had left accessible no written word of his own, and Basil Everman's manuscript lay safely in Dr. Lister's desk drawer, awaiting Mrs. Lister's decision. She slipped out of their envelopes several letters, but found only a few small bills for books. Neither an invitation to write an article in exchange for a hundred dollars nor an actual check for ten dollars appeared. She frowned and for several days said less than usual. Then, Dr. Scott's preoccupation increasing, she pleaded general weariness and a severe headache and stayed in bed.
In the evening Dr. Scott went to sit for an hour in her room. She lay high on her pillows with a flutter of lace and ribbons about her, and he sat by the window, a pleasant breeze fanning him, a young moon smiling at him over the shoulder of the Lister house. The Lister house was dark and somber in the deep shadow and its almost sinister appearance might have warned him to keep its secrets. But he was not warned.
Mrs. Scott talked about his work, about the drudgery of the classroom, about the dull boys and girls upon whom he wasted so many weary hours, about the pittance he received. She wished for him leisure, larger pay, opportunities such as he deserved.
"It is all you need to bring you out. I get angry at the conditions under which you slave in this dull town when you might take a high place elsewhere and become famous."
"You rate me highly, my dear," said Dr. Scott. Nevertheless he smiled.
"No, I don't," contradicted Mrs. Scott. "Here is Mrs. Lister's brother writing a few things and dull things at that, and having his name heralded through the whole world; and here is Eleanor Bent, a nobody, with her name in every one's mouth."
Dr. Scott looked out of the window. He had suffered—and blushed with shame for it—acute envy of Eleanor and her youth.
"You could do so much better! You are older and more learned and you have had more experience and more outlook on the world."