The poor little face was drawn into piteous lines and wrinkles as she sighed forth this lament.
'But what has he done, child?'
She shook her head. 'Nothing. If I could have seen before marriage a diary of my married life as it would be, I should have thought, as I did, that I was going into an earthly paradise. There is nothing wrong but the atmosphere, and there is only one thing wanting in that.'
'He does not care for you?' I scarcely did more than form the words with my lips, but the answering tears rolled down her cheeks again at once.
'Not a bit. At least, not so much as you care for To-to or—Janet. And it isn't his fault. He is perfectly kind to me in his fashion, admires the way I have worked to please him, is grieved that I am dissatisfied with the result. Only—he did not take me in—of his own accord, and so I have remained always—outside. That's all!'
She spread out her little hands, and clasped them again, with a plaintive gesture of resignation.
'And—and if I seem ungrateful you must forgive me; I've never been able to tell it all to any one for all these four years.'
I was stricken with remorse, but I dared not give it the least expression for fear of the lengths to which it might carry me.
I made another journey among the gipsy tables and the pestilent bric-à-brac, and returning sat down, not on the sofa beside her, but in a chair a few feet away. I took a book up from a table by my side; I remember that it was Marmion, and that it had very exquisite illustrations.
'How about these friends, then, whose intimacy your husband disapproves of?'