"Oh no!" she pleaded. "It wouldn't improve matters to make a scene, and he's not likely to offend again. Please don't? Stay here—with me."
"But I'm your host. Really, he deserves a thrashing."
"No, no! Stay here! I don't feel equal to the others."
"I never do." Sitting again, he turned on her a look of beaming fellowship. "The girls all yawn and look terribly bored when I try to amuse them—except you. They don't seem to care for horses and dogs, the things that interest me."
If, as a conversationalist, he did not shine, he at least brought her the first easy moments she had known that day, and she turned a sympathetic ear to some of his prattle. Indicating Rhodes, who was leaning over Mrs. Leslie, he said: "You know I don't like that sort of thing. Elinor says I'm old-fashioned, and I suppose she knows. Of course she wouldn't do anything that wasn't proper, but a fellow has his feelings, and it doesn't take a crime to hurt them, does it? She's up on the conventions; but it does seem to me that if a fellow has anything to say to another fellow's wife he ought to say it aloud."
Astonished that his dulness should have sensed the pervading sensualism, she studied him while he watched his wife, in his eyes something of that pitiful pleading one sees in those of a beaten dog. His words banished her doubts as to whether her own misgivings did not root in hypercritical standards—restored her viewpoint. All week the atmosphere had thickened, as constant association banished reserve, and to-day freedom had attained its meridian. It was not the matter but the manner of conversation that filled her with a great uneasiness—the whispers, asides, smiling stares, conscious laughter. The vitiated atmosphere caused her a feeling of suffocation, and in the midst of her sick revulsion Leslie dropped a remark that came to her like a breath of ozone.
"I was awfully sorry to hear of the trouble between you and Carter. I always thought him such a fine fellow. He hadn't much use for me—any of us—still I liked him. He was a bit on the rough, of course; but, I tell you, character counts more than culture, strength than refinement."
Character counts more than culture, strength than refinement? To his simplicity had been vouched wisdom worthy of a philosopher. The phrase stabbed her. Before her rose a vision of her husband as she had seen him that last miserable night, cold, stern, inexorable, in the loom of the moonlight. In view of that colossal memory, the Englishmen about her dwarfed to effeminate insignificance. Vividly her own doubting recurred. And she had traded him—for this! The thought brought wretchedness too great for concealment. Her uneasiness was so manifest as to form the theme of a bedroom conversation.
Though comfortable—the one frame house in the settlements, a palace to Canadian eyes—Leslie's house boasted only two bedrooms; so while the men made shift on shake-downs, Helen shared Mrs. Leslie's rooms, Edith Newton and Mrs. Jack the other.
As she braided her hair for the night, the latter lady opened the conversation. "Did you notice how uncomfortable little Carter was this evening? She is a nice little thing, but she doesn't mix. I don't see why Elinor invited her."