“How stunning you do look in that velvet dress!” he said.
Ida laughed consciously. “I rather like it myself,” said she. “It's a great deal handsomer than Mrs. George Henderson's, and I know she had hers made at a Fifth Avenue tailor's, and it must have cost twice as much.”
Ida had filled Harry with the utmost faith in her financial management. While he was spending more than he had ever done, and working harder, he was innocently unconscious of it. He felt a sense of gratitude and wonder that Ida was such a good manager and accomplished such great results with such a small expenditure. He was unwittingly disloyal to his first wife. He remembered the rigid economy under her sway, and owned to himself, although with remorseful tenderness, that she had not been such a financier as this woman. “You ought to go on Wall Street,” he often told Ida. He gazed after her now with a species of awe that he had such a splendid, masterful creature for his wife, as she moved with the slow majesty habitual to her out of the room, the black plumes on her hat softly floating, the rich draperies of her gown trailing in sumptuous folds of darkness.
When she came down again, in a rose-colored silk tea-gown trimmed with creamy lace, she was still more entrancing. She brought with her into the room an atmosphere of delicate perfume. Harry had stopped smoking entirely nowadays. Ida had persuaded him that it was bad for him. She had said nothing about the expense, as his first wife had been accustomed to do. Therefore there was no tobacco smoke to dull his sensibilities to this delicate perfume. It was as if a living rose had entered the room. Ida sank gracefully into a chair opposite him. She was wondering how she could easily lead up to the subject in her mind. There was much diplomacy, on a very small and selfish scale, about Ida. She realized the expediency of starting from apparently a long distance, to establish her sequences in order to maintain the appearance of unpremeditativeness.
“Isn't it a little too warm here, dear?” said she, presently, in the voice which alone she could not control. Whenever she had an entirely self-centred object in mind, an object which might possibly meet with opposition, as now, her voice rang harsh and lost its singing quality.
Harry did not seem to notice it. He started up immediately. The portières between the room and the vestibule were drawn. He had, in fact, felt somewhat chilly. It was a cold day, and he had a touch of the grip. “I will open the portières, dear,” he said. “I dare say you are right.”
“I noticed it when I first came in,” said Ida. “I meant to draw the portières apart myself, but going out through the library I forgot it. Thank you, dear. How is your cold?”
“It is nothing, dear,” replied Harry. “There is only a little soreness in my throat.”
He resumed his seat, and noticed the fragrance of roasted chicken coming through the parted portières from the kitchen. Harry was very fond of roasted chicken. He inhaled that and the delicate perfume of Ida's garments and hair. He regarded her glowing beauty with affection which had no taint of sensuality. Harry had more of a poetic liking for sweet odors and beauty than a sensual one.
Harry Edgham in these days had a more poetic and spiritual look than formerly. He had not lost his strange youthfulness of expression; it was as if a child had the appearance of having been longer on the earth. His hair had thinned, and receded from his temples, and the bold, almost babyish fulness of his temples was more evident. His face was thinner, too, and he had not much color. His mouth was drawn down at the corner, and he frowned slightly, as a child might, in helpless but non-aggressive dissent. His worn appearance was very noticeable, in spite of his present happy mood, of which his wife shrewdly took advantage.