I noticed how Richard exerted himself that I should feel at ease. But he, too, I think, was moved by the oddness of the situation.
She calls me Madame Elsie, and I call her Madame Beathe.
Involuntarily I glanced round for the big portrait Kröyer in his day painted of me, the portrait which Richard simply idolised. He saw what I was looking for, and cast down his eyes. I felt inclined to say, “Dearest friend, don’t let us be sentimental. What was once is no longer. But the picture was a true work of art, and for that reason you should have let it hang where it was.”
One thinks such things, but doesn’t say them.
I was shown, too, the daughters’ bedroom upstairs, and there—there hung my picture among photographs of actresses and school friends. Finally it will land in the attic unless it occurs to some one to make money out of it.
Why is it I cannot get rid of a feeling of bitterness and humiliation? They were all very kind and considerate. But when Madame Beathe joking suggested a match between her Annelisa and my Kelly, I felt near to crying. Annelisa is a thoroughly nice girl, it is true. But I cannot endure the thought of Kelly being looked down on, because of his country manners. And she does look down on him.
The little mistress has one fault. She is too immaculately tidy. I noticed that all the carpets had dusting sheets over them, and naturally supposed their removal had been forgotten, till I saw that every single article on her dressing-table was covered in the middle of the day with gauze, and I heard her scolding one of the maids for not washing her hands before beginning to lay the cloth after touching some books. Richard, I am sure, finds it trying.
When he smokes a cigar she sits on pins and needles for fear he shall scatter the ash about. And God knows that for a man Richard is tidy enough. She discovered a mark on the white window-ledge, only a raindrop, I believe, but got up twenty times at least to scrub, brush, and breathe on the spot.
It gives me food for thought. It is not for me to judge what she does and how she acts. But I can’t get over it. I feel bound to criticise her. And somehow the idea will bother me that this is my home she is fussing about in, and not the other way about.