“She never did a more sensible thing in her life,” he declared, as he lighted his pipe, at last. “It would have been an awful bore to have to live up to her ideal.”
XIX.
Three days passed at the mills with no special incident. To Salome they seemed the dullest she had ever known. For the first time, she discovered that the Shawsheen Mills and the condition of its operatives was not enough to satisfy the inmost longings of her heart, or to still its disquietude. Without the presence of John Villard, and the constant inspiration of his presence, life lost its zest and sparkle.
When the three days were over, Salome went to her pillow at night with a sense of relief. Until now, she had not realized what her position at the head of the mills might mean without Villard. She saw that without him she could have done little, and would have made many mistakes—a fact which it was good for her to realize. And then she remembered, with sudden terror, that he might leave her at any moment, as Burnham had done.
“He will be home in the morning,” she said to her disquieted heart, “and I will offer him a share in the business. I will make him a partner, and then I shall never lose him.” And even in the darkness of night and the privacy of her own room, she resolutely put away from herself any other contingency.
The morning dawned beautiful, fresh and balmy, as only a spring morning late in May can dawn in New England. Salome dressed herself with unusual care. A strange, happy feeling under-ran all her thoughts. She would not think of him; she would not look forward to his coming; but, for her, all the gladness of the May morning, all the blossoming of spring flowers, all the caroling of joyous birds, meant only that Villard had arrived in Shepardtown on the night express, and that she would see him in an hour or two. She did not hurry her preparations for breakfast,—this was such a strange, delightful mood. She looked at her own reflection in the mirror, thinking unconsciously of making herself fair for him. She sang snatches of merry song from the last comic opera, laughing to herself as she recalled how her nurse used to forbid her singing before the morning meal, and how she used to repeat, in a lugubrious tone, the old sign:
“If you sing before breakfast,
You’ll cry before night.”
And, still singing, she stopped at her aunt’s room, only to find that everybody had gone downstairs before her.
Mrs. Soule and Marion were chatting pleasantly over their hot-house grapes when she entered the breakfast-room. The morning papers lay untouched beside Salome’s plate. She took her place and leisurely pared an orange. Afterwards she remembered the time she wasted in cutting the peel into fantastic shapes.