“I have a headache.”
She put the pie on the wash-tub with a distracted gesture, and began beseechingly, her head tilted toward her shoulder, eyes and mouth pleading:
“Ah, now, Evie, don’t have a headache. The party was to be a surprise for you. I’ve been getting it together all afternoon. And I ordered the pie especially. Please feel well. Mr. Clements has been so good to me and I wanted to return his kindness and I knew he wouldn’t enjoy it half so much if you weren’t here.”
I know every word was genuine. I believe she is still ignorant of Roger’s feeling for her. One of the things I have often noticed about her is that she seems unconscious of, or indifferent to, her attraction for men. I have never heard her speak of it or seen her show any pleasure in it. Small coquettes and flirts, the women who make a study of charming, can not hide their pride of conquest, love to recount the havoc they have wrought. There is none of that in Lizzie. Sometimes I have thought she is so used to admiration that she accepts it as a part of her life, like the sunshine or the rain. Roger, as “a kind man,” is just lumped in with the count and the doctor and Mr. Hamilton. And with her blindness to other people’s claims she makes no inquiry, takes no notice of the humbler romances of the rest of us. She has never said a word to me about Roger as my friend. If she has ever given it a thought she has ticketed him as just “a kind man” to me also.
I lay back in the wooden chair and stared at her with a haggard glance.
“Do you like Mr. Clements, Lizzie,” I said solemnly.
She nodded, then reached for the pie and began touching its surface with the tip of a finger.
“Immensely. I don’t see how any one could help it. He’s so kind.”
Her attention was concentrated on what she held. She scrutinized it as if it were a treasure in which she searched for a possible flaw.
“He’s more than kind,” I answered. Even in my misery I felt a tinge of irritation that she should accept Roger’s homage as if he was of no more value than the count or the doctor.