VIII
He came over to dinner that night, and Betty, who had walked about in a vague dreamy state all day, dressed herself again in white. She woke up suddenly as she came into his presence, and was the life of the dinner. Harriet seemed absent of mind and nervous, but Emory's spirits were normal, and he was more attentive to Sally Carter than she to him. But Betty's interest in her friends' affairs had dropped to a very low ebb. She was in a new mental world, stranger than that entered by most women, for her hands were empty, but she was happy. She had reflected again—in so far as she had been capable of reflection—that most marriages were prosaic, and that her own high romance, her inestimable happiness in loving and being loved by a man in whom her pride was so great, was a lot to be envied of all women. It was not all the destiny she herself would have chosen, but it compassed a great deal. She would have made him wholly happy, been his whole happiness; marriage between them never would have been prosaic, and she would not have cared if it were; she would have made him forget the deep trials and sorrows of his past and the worries and annoyances of the present. But this was not to be, and there was much she could do for him and would.
They talked politics through dinner, and Mrs. Madison noted with a sigh that Betty's interest in the undesirable institution was unabated. She admired Senator North, however, and felt pride in his appreciation of her brilliant daughter. She expressed her regret amiably at not being able to meet again Mrs. North, who would see none but old friends in these days, and Senator North assured her of his wife's agreeable remembrance of her brief acquaintance with Mrs. Madison.
"How wonderfully well people behave whose common secret would set their world by the ears," thought Betty. "Our worst enemies could detect nothing; and on what there is heaven knows a huge scandal could be built."
After dinner she played to him for an hour, while the others, with the exception of Mrs. Madison, who went to sleep, became absorbed in whist. But she did not see him for a moment alone, and Jack rowed him across the lake.
She went to her bed, but not to sleep. She hardly cared if she never slept again. Night in a measure gave him to her, and to sleep was to forget the wonder that he loved her.
It was shortly after midnight that she heard a faint but unmistakable creaking on the tin roof of the veranda. She sat up. Some one was about to pass her window. She sprang out of bed, crossed the room softly, and lifted the edge of the curtain. A figure was almost crawling past. It was a woman's figure; the stars gave enough light to define its outlines at close range. She had a shawl over her head, but her angular body was unmistakable. She was Miss Trumbull.
Betty dropped the curtain and stared into the darkness. "Whom is she watching?" she thought. "Whom is she watching?"
She went back to bed and listened intently. In half an hour she heard the same sound again.
"She is going back to her room," thought Betty. "What has she seen?"