"Put them anywhere! It doesn't make the least difference!"
So Charles laid his burden down on the table, and quietly went up the ladder again. Here, for a space, he pretended to be impossibly busy over nearly empty shelves.
And then, out of the silence behind him, he heard his friend's voice, painfully stiff, somewhat strained.
"You see—you oughtn't to have come to see me to-day. I—I'm not fit for society. I tried to warn you. I haven't had time—to get philosophical yet."
The helper spoke into the dusty closet: "Well, you don't need to get philosophical with me. I'm pretty mad myself—as far as that goes."
"I wasn't prepared for it—at all.... And then I've been beating my head against it—like a fool—all afternoon."
Well he knew Mary's horror of weakness, her warranted confidence in her own self-control. Well he understood her regret for that uniquely sharp speech of hers. Was it this, a novel impulse to justify herself in his eyes, that seemed to force her on, beyond his expectation and against her own will?
"But don't suppose I went there expecting to have my own way about everything—manage them around like children. I didn't. I went respectfully. I went to beg. But it was no use."
Silence: and then the hard voice went on rapidly:—
"She and Donald had talked it all over, and decided that it would be best for his career to go to New York. She and Donald ... I did think that, as I was planning Donald's work when she was still in short dresses, my opinion might have some weight with her. And I thought, just as you did, that something might be saved if they stayed here for the present—kept the house and all the rest of it. And then, of course, I lost my temper—that makes twice.... I reminded her how she had told me once that nothing could induce her to leave her mother, as a widow.... What was the use? Of course she only cried, and said it was hopeless to try to explain to me—how differently a woman felt about all these things when she was going to be married. I believe she said I was incapable of understanding the new emotions that came with a great love."