“It’s very nice,” said Freda, “I’ll enjoy it and I think—though I never dare to speak for Gregory—that he will too. I remember having a beautiful time at dinner here before. When I was here visiting the Brownleys you asked me—do you remember?”
“I asked the Brownleys to-night. They were in town—all but Allie. I asked the elder two and Bob and her young man—Ted Smillie, you know.”
She looked at Freda a little quizzically and Freda looked back, wondering how much she knew.
“Think they’ll want to meet me?” she asked straight-forwardly.
“I do, very much. I think it’s better, Freda, just to put an end to any silly talk. It may not matter to you but you know I liked your father so much and it occurred to me that it might matter to him if any untrue gossip were not killed. And it’s so very easy to kill it.”
“You take a great deal of trouble for me,” protested Freda.
Helen hesitated. She was on the verge of greater confidence and decided against it.
“Let me do as I please then, will you?” she said smilingly and Freda agreed.
Helen felt a little dishonest about it. The dinner was another hostage to fortune. It was gathering up the loose ends neatly—it was brushing out of sight bits of unsightly thought—establishing a basis which would enable her later to do other things.
She had an idea that it would please Gage, though he had been non-committal when she had broached the idea of having Gregory and his wife for a brief visit. Helen had seen but little of Gage of late. She knew he was working hard and badly worried about money. They had sold a piece of property to raise that thousand for the Macmillans and he had told her definitely of bad times ahead for him. She offered to reduce the expenses of the household and he had agreed in the necessity. They must shave every expense. But it invigorated Helen. She had amends to make to Gage and the more practical the form the easier it was to make them. Neither of them desired to unnecessarily trouble those dark waters of mental conflict now. Helen guessed that Gage’s mind was not on her and that the bad tangle of his business life absorbed him. Brusque, haggard, absorbed, never attempting or apparently needing affection, he came and went. Never since Carpenter’s death had they even discussed the question of separation. That possibility was there. They had beaten a path to it. But hysteria was too thoroughly weeded out of Gage to press toward it. Without mutual reproach they both saw that separation in the immediate future was the last advantageous thing for the work of either of them and flimsy as that foundation seemed for life together, yet it held them. They turned their backs upon what they had lost or given up and looked ahead. Helen heard Gage refer some political question to her for the first time, with a kind of wonder. She suspected irony, then dropped her own self-consciousness as it became apparent that he really did not have any twisted motive behind the query. She began to see that in great measure he had swung loose from her, substituting some new strength for his dependence on her love. And, when some moment of emotional sorrow at the loss of their ardors came over her, she turned as neatly as did he from disturbing thought to the work, which piled in on her by letter and by conference.