Marjorie was far from happy. The experience at Government House haunted her. Incidents that she had scarcely noted at the time, recurred in the pitiless glare of a good memory to harry her and rob her of her peace of mind. It had all been so different from what she expected!
Sunday dragged wearily on. The children seemed fretful and unusually difficult. The roast was tough and the furnace went out, so that Raymond was obliged to devote most of his precious afternoon to re-lighting it. By the time, therefore, that the children had sung their evening hymn, had each chosen a Bible story to be read aloud, and had been put to bed, Marjorie felt that she could bear no more, and she invaded the disorderly “drawing-room,” too troubled to be repulsed by the unwelcoming expression in her husband’s eyes.
“Well, what is it, my dear?” Dilling closed the volume upon his long, thin finger, and tapped it with a slender pencil. “Is anything especially the matter?”
“I don’t know,” sighed Marjorie. “That’s just what I want to ask you, dear. Something must be wrong, somewhere, only I can’t find it! I seem to be so stupid here, Raymond, and people don’t like me. I know I oughtn’t to bother you, dear,” she said, noticing how his eyes strayed back to the book that at the moment she almost hated, with its chrome leather binding, its overwhelming contents, and the voluptuous overpowering odour that reflected the literary richness of its substance, “and I won’t stay long, but can’t you help me, and tell me what to do, so that I’ll be more like the Ottawa people?”
Dilling stared down into the mist-blurred eyes, only half seeing them. His thoughts were snared by his own problems and he could not free them immediately. His casual words of encouragement carried no comfort to his wife, who stumbled on,
“You’re so clever, dearie! If you aren’t sure of a thing, you always know where to learn all about it. . . and that’s all I’m asking you, Raymond—to tell me some book that will explain these queer things that I don’t seem to understand.”
“What kind of things?”
The question was not exactly brusque, but to anyone less troubled it would have suggested a definite desire for a brief interview. Marjorie raised her hands and let them fall to her sides helplessly.
“Hundreds—hundreds!” she began. “All sorts . . .”
“Give me a concrete illustration. Tell me one.”