“You knew it, and you could have that going on?” he said. “Go back to your bazaar.”
“I certainly will. I think you are terribly unkind.”
“You can have those people here, and that band playing, when you know that? Well, if such scenes give you pleasure at such a time, go and enjoy them.”
He strode into the house. She looked after his retreating figure; then she took out her daintily laced handkerchief, applied it to her eyes, and went back to her duties.
“I am a martyr in a good cause,” she said to herself; “but it is bitterly hard when one’s husband does not understand one.”
CHAPTER XIX.
This was better than the phantom ship. This was peace, joy, and absolute delight. Sibyl need not now only lie in her father’s arms at night and in her dreams. She could look into his face and hear his voice and touch his hand at all hours, day and night.
Her gladness was so real and beautiful that it pervaded the entire room, and in her presence Ogilvie scarcely felt pain. He held her little hand and sat by her side, and at times when she was utterly weary he even managed to raise her in his arms and pace the room with her, and lay her back again on her bed without hurting her, and he talked cheerfully in her presence, and smiled and even joked with her, and they were gay together with a sort of tender gaiety which had never been theirs in the old times. At night, especially, he was her best comforter and her kindest and most tender nurse.