"I will not hear anything about it," said she. "I will think only of going away."
But her fears were stronger than her will. Her mind traveled again its old round. There was sodden, debauched Bates, with his rude and intimate salutation; there was the impertinent freedom of Mrs. Scott; there was the appraising stare of Walter Simpson Scott; there was her mother's embarrassed unwillingness to talk about Basil Everman; there was also that strange voice which she had heard long ago, that voice which seemed to reprove and to beseech her mother.
"She is good!" cried Eleanor. "And I am wicked and hateful!"
Presently she was wakened by the opening of the door in the hall below, and she sprang up, deceived for an instant into thinking that Richard Lister had returned and was asking for her. Then she lay down, dizzily. The voice was not Richard's, but Dr. Green's older, deeper tones which asked, "Is Eleanor at home?"
When her mother answered that she had gone out, Eleanor closed her eyes. He had probably come to invite her to ride into the country with him. But she could not go; she could not bear the heat or the light or his bright eyes. Their expression disturbed her, had disturbed her subconsciously for weeks, the look of hunger which had brightened them when she had told him of her success with "Professor Ellenborough's Last Class" reminding her of the eyes of a caged animal, of strong feeling kept under, but there, waiting to blaze out. She had been repelled by it.
Dr. Green, told that she was out, did not go away. He said, instead, "It is you I wish to see, Margie."
Eleanor heard a step, the opening of a door into the dining-room, then its sharp closing.
She sat up on the edge of her bed. Had her mother sent for Dr. Green? That was not possible, both from the nature of his greeting and because her mother had only her to send on errands. Could it be that she was ill, and that he had observed it and had come to remonstrate with her for not having medical advice? If there was anything the matter with her mother, she must know. She rose quickly and went on with her dressing.
Then her face grew white. Dr. Green had called her mother "Margie!" Moreover, he was now loudly and rudely remonstrating with her. He was, one might say, storming at Mrs. Bent. It was as though the caged animal in his breast had escaped.