Another day; and it started so well and ended so queerly that I am not going to try to sleep for hours yet—until I have written the whole thing out so I can read it over and see whether or not it really happened, for I find it so hard to believe.
To begin at the beginning, Richard called up from the city this morning and explained to his mother that he had been on a business trip down in the country—far away from a telephone station, he said, and so he had not been able to communicate with her. He asked her to call me to the telephone and we had as satisfying a little talk as people in our position ever have over wires. He would be down home on the first train in the morning, he told me, and he insisted that I tell him something he might have the pleasure of bringing me.
"Oh, I'll excuse the olive branch," I replied in answer to this question, "for I'll be so glad to see you."
Glad to see him? Ah yes, so glad! And in the joy of the thought I forgot all about being jealous of the Blakes. With this restoration of happiness the day naturally passed more quickly to me, and I found myself wondering why Evelyn didn't get over that hurting in her side, and why Mrs. Chalmers still looked so anxious and why Sophie and Mr. Maxwell continued to eye each other so reproachfully when the one thought the other was not looking. Richard was coming home in the morning! Surely all would be well then!
Dinner was a dismal affair, for Evelyn was not any better—was not so well, Mrs. Chalmers said, with a look of great anxiety, although the doctor had not said positively what the trouble was. As soon as we had left the table Sophie followed Mrs. Chalmers to Evelyn's room, thus leaving Mr. Maxwell to a tête-à-tête evening with me.
There was a brilliant fire in the library and we both were attracted toward its cheer as we crossed the hall. He lit a cigarette and sat staring moodily at the little clouds of smoke which he puffed into the air. Clearly he was not going to thrust conversation upon me. To make sure that he should have no encouragement to do so I began looking around vaguely for something to read. There was a pile of fresh papers which had come by the night's train lying folded on the table, but I have had little appetite for newspapers since the day of the fishy cartoon. I should not read any more of the horrid tales about him, but he should tell me all that there was to tell and I would believe him. But not a question did I expect to ask. His confidence should be entirely voluntary or not given at all.
No newspapers for me then this night; and I glanced around the room for something else. Something forbidding-looking and very deep I decided on as being best to keep Mr. Maxwell's conversational powers in abeyance. I went to one of the book-shelves which lined the walls. Running my hand along a line of Huxley's works I came to Science and the Christian Tradition and promptly decided that this was the very volume I needed to impress Mr. Maxwell that I was reading something very profound and needed all my wits about me.
Returning to my chair by the fire I sat down and opened my book, but I was in nowise disappointed by finding that the leaves had never been cut. There was a heavy pearl-and-silver paper-cutter lying on the table near by, but I did not take the trouble to reach for it. What did I care for a lot of prehistoric teeth and toe-nails dug up and brought forward to prove that before "Adam delved and Eve span" the baboon was a gentleman?
Mr. Maxwell continued to stare into the fire, and I do not believe he ever glanced at the impressive three-quarters morocco binding I was holding up so persistently for him to see. After half-an-hour had been thus profitlessly spent I grew tired and decided that I would go to my room and go to bed. Morning would come the more quickly this way.
As I started to cross the room to replace the book in its niche I heard Mrs. Chalmers going up the steps again—it seemed to me fully fifty times that evening she had made pilgrimages up and down those stairs on her way to and from the invalid's room.