CHAPTER XXIV A DEEPENING SHADOW
As the days passed the friendly relations between Mrs. Bent and her daughter were not restored. Mrs. Bent looked at Eleanor furtively, cried when she was away from her, and redoubled all her self-sacrificing toil. The sound of a step on the porch made her shiver. She spoke to Eleanor and Eleanor spoke to her as though there were an ever-present danger of another breaking-through of the thin crust which masked a crater of seething emotion.
Mrs. Bent need not have feared that her daughter would open the subject which had led to so unpleasant a scene. No one who had the run of Dr. Green's library could fail to know that there were other forms of existence beside the conventional unions of Waltonville's married folk and Eleanor had, with youth's eagerness to learn the ways of a wider world, followed the lives of a few historical examples of other sorts of union. She had believed herself to be in this matter, as in others, broad-minded. But now her opinions had changed; a fearful possibility threatened her. She came to believe that her mother waited an opportunity to confide in her a secret no longer to be hidden and grown too heavy to bear alone. In her fright she avoided her mother, and when they were together interrupted with some foolishness each sentence which promised to be serious.
"I am sorry for her," cried Eleanor to herself. "I am sorry, but I cannot listen to her."
In the middle of a hot August afternoon she determined to go for a walk. If she went a long distance and came home tired and drank no coffee for her supper, it might be that she could sleep through the night. She had no goal in view; she would simply go on until she was tired and then turn for the long walk home. As she dressed she reproached herself for her weakness. She would persuade her mother to go away from Waltonville; it was said that time and new scenes cured troubles of the mind. They would go to a larger place where no one would inquire into their business or even know them.
"But I don't want to know anything about it!" said Eleanor to herself. "I don't want her to tell me! If she tells me I shall die!"
Standing before her mirror she brushed her dark hair with long, sweeping motions of her arm. Her eyes met their reflection.
"I am beautiful," said Eleanor. "There is some satisfaction in that."
Then her cheeks crimsoned. Neither her eyes nor her dark hair nor her height had come from her mother—from whom had they come? She gave up her intention to walk and threw herself face downward upon her bed.