Through One Administration

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

"Why did he not remain longer?" Richard asked afterward, when the guests were gone and they were talking the evening over.

"He was not in the mood to meet people," Bertha replied. "He said he had heard something he did not like, and it had put him out of humor. I think it was something about me."

"About you!" Richard exclaimed. "Why, in Heaven's name, about you?"

"His manner made me think so," she answered, coldly. "And it would not be at all unnatural. I think we may begin to expect such things."

"Upon my word," said Richard, starting up, "I think that is going rather far. Don't you see"—with righteous indignation—"what an imputation you are casting on me? Do you suppose I would allow you to do anything that—that"—

She raised her eyes and met his with an unwavering glance.

"Certainly not," she said, quickly. And his sentence remained unfinished, not because he felt that his point had been admitted, but because, for some mysterious reason, it suddenly became impossible for him to say more.

More than some of late, when he had launched into one of his spasmodic defences of himself, he had found himself checked by this intangible power in her uplifted eyes, and he certainly did not feel his grievances the less for the experiences.

Until during the last few months he had always counted it as one of his wife's chief charms that there was nothing complicated about her, that her methods were as simple and direct as a child's. It had never seemed necessary to explain her. But he had not found this so of late. He had even begun to feel that, though there was no outward breach in the tenor of their lives, an almost impalpable barrier had risen between them. He expressed no wish she did not endeavor to gratify her manner toward himself, with the exception of the fleeting moments when he had felt the check, was entirely unchanged; the spirit of her gayety ruled the house, as it had always done; and yet he was not always sure of the exact significance of her jests and laughter. The jests were clever, the laugh had a light ring; but there was a difference which puzzled him, and which, because he recognized in it some vague connection with himself, he tried in his moments of leisure to explain. He had even spoken of it to Colonel Tredennis on occasions when his mood was confidential.