"He will miss me presently," she thought, "remember about the lessons, and come up to hear them, and I'll have him all to myself for at least a little while."
He did not come, but at length Rosie looked in to say, "Won't you come down to the music-room, Zoe? Miss Fleming is going to play for us, and she is said to be quite a wonderful performer."
Zoe accepted the invitation; she was fond of music, and it wasn't Miss Fleming who had robbed her of Edward. Yet, when she saw him standing beside her, a rapt and delighted listener, and assiduously turning her music, she began to almost hate her, too.
The advent of these two strangers seemed to have rendered ineffectual all the efforts she had put forth that day to gratify her husband; of what use was it that she had so carefully prepared the lessons he would not trouble himself to hear? or that she had spent hours of patient practice at the piano in learning the song she was given no opportunity to play and sing?
But womanly pride was awaking within her, and she made a tolerably successful effort to control and hide her feelings.
When at length she found herself alone with Edward in their own apartments, she moved silently about making her preparations for retiring, seeming to have nothing to say.
He burst into enthusiastic praises of the talents of their guests—the conversational gift of the one, the musical genius of the other.
Zoe, standing before the mirror, brushing out her soft shining tresses, made no response.
"Why are you so silent, little woman?" Edward asked presently.
"Because I have nothing to say that you would want to hear."