Leslie, who neither looked nor felt well, raised half-resentful eyes.
"Oh, no, I'm not driving, and I'm lying in bed mornings, and I don't play squash, or ride horseback, or go in for tennis!" she drawled, half angrily. "I'm having a perfectly lovely time! I wish Acton had a little of it; he wouldn't be so pleased! Makes me so mad," grumbled Leslie, as she wandered toward the door, busily buttoning her coat. "Grandma crying with joy, and Aunt Alice goo-gooing at me, and Acton——"
"Come, now, be a little sport, Leslie!" her aunt urged, affectionately, with her arm about her. "It's rotten, of course, but after all, it does mean a lot to the Liggetts——"
"Oh, now, don't you begin!" Leslie protested, half-mollified, with her parting nod. "Don't—for pity's sake!—talk about it," she added, rudely, to Norma, as Norma began some consolatory murmur on the stairs. But when they were before her own fire, waiting for the expected girls, she made Norma a rather ungracious confidence.
"I don't want Aunt Alice or any one to know it, but if Acton Liggett thinks I am going to let him make an absolute fool of me, he's mistaken!" Leslie said, in a sort of smouldering resentment.
"What has Acton done?" Norma asked, flattered by the intimation of trust and not inclined to be apprehensive. She had seen earlier differences between the young married pair, and now, when Leslie was physically at a disadvantage, she and Alice had agreed that it was not unnatural that the young wife should grow exacting and fanciful.
"Acton is about the most selfish person I ever knew," Leslie said, almost with a whimper. "Oh, yes, he is, Norma! You don't see it—but I do! Chris knows it, too; I've heard Chris call him down a thousand times for it! I am just boiling at Acton; I have been all day! He leaves everything to me, everything; and I'm not well, now, and I can't stand it! And I'll tell him I can't, too."
"I suppose a man doesn't understand very well," Norma ventured.
"He doesn't!" Leslie said, warmly. "All Acton Liggett thinks of is his own comfort—that's all! I do everything for him—I pay half the expenses here, you know, more than half, really, for I always pay for my own clothes and Milly, and lots of other things. And then he'll do some mean, ugly thing that just makes me furious at him—and he'll walk out of the house, perfectly calm and happy!"
"He's always had his own way a good deal," Norma who knew anything except sympathy would utterly exasperate Leslie conceded, mildly.