"It does seem too strange," Emily repeated.
"By heck! what a novel I'm going to write! This—sets me up; this eggs me on so! I'm going to change a lot of it; I'm going to make it hotter!"
"Does Miss Curtis know about the novel?"
"Yes. She knows I'm writing it; but she doesn't know why."
Emily marveled; she kept on marveling. She was as excited as Martha was the next few days. She had to keep from looking at Miss Curtis too intently; that woman had become almost too poignantly interesting. It was as if she was living Emily Kenworthy's life and Martha's. It seemed impossible to believe Martha's story. Miss Curtis was unromantic, so dull, so sensible. She seemed almost stupidly passionless—except when the child came running to her. And when Emily saw her draw little Ruth to herself, and push her fringe of hair away from her forehead, and look at her, she had to believe that Martha had stumbled upon the truth of the situation. The woman, undoubtedly, was maternity itself. Had she some way guessed what Martha had been through, and told her this secret for some unselfish purpose? Could she have loved some one beyond all reason? How had she managed to hide her shame? How had she endured the pity and the jeerings of the secure and holy? Emily found herself in Martha's state. She quivered with curiosity and reverence, and a desire to befriend those two. Could that woman be living in fear that some day when her secret would become known, she would be without a means of earning her living? "I must pretend not to be very much interested in her!" Emily kept saying. But she understood why Martha had felt so lifted up by her discovery.
Chapter Nine
Mrs. Benton stepped in for a minute one afternoon, on her way home. "Where's Bob?" she asked, cautiously.
"He's gone downtown."
"I just thought I'd tell you about Johnnie. He's going to be home in about three weeks, I think, or maybe four. So it would have to come out, anyway. Do you know what he's doing this summer?"