There was an added irony to it all in the way she received us in her parlor. She was the type of girl who preserves under all circumstances the little punctilios of life. She didn’t permit herself the indiscretion of one surprised look at the sight of our strained faces and our arrival in the midst of a slow-falling, implacable spring rain. It was impossible not to avoid the polite overtures of an ordinary call. If we had come on an important errand it was plain that we should have to make the opening for the telling of that errand ourselves. She was very polite to us, but her politeness hid a mild resentment, for we had represented in life all of Alec that she had never been able to possess; while to us Elizabeth, so pretty in her commonplace way, so decorous, represented the menace of Alec’s happiness.
For a moment we bandied polite phrases, or rather Elizabeth and I did, while Ellen sat inert and aloof as she had on the drive over, until all of a sudden she seemed to awaken in a gush of pity for Alec and for Elizabeth. She swept all the little politenesses out of the way with one gesture.
“Elizabeth,” said she, “you must put on your things and come with us. Alec’s been hurt. His eyesight is perhaps in danger.”
There was something deeply sweet in the way she spoke and deeply sweet in the look she gave Elizabeth, and at her complete sincerity and goodness Elizabeth also dropped the politenesses that she was using as a shield against us. The tears that were so easy for her started to her eyes.
“Oh, Ellen!” she cried; “oh, poor Alec!”
“We’d better go, I think, Elizabeth,” said Ellen gently.
“I can’t go,” Elizabeth answered; “I can’t go with you, Ellen.”
And to the amazed question of our looks: “I can’t go because I care for some one else,” she told us. “I’d have written to him before,” she went on, “but I thought I’d let him wait. He’d let me wait long enough.” There was neither spite nor bitterness in her tone as she said this. I think the very best of her came forward to meet us in this moment. At the root of her narrow little nature was a certain childlike candor. “I cared for him too long without having him ever care. I tried to be real patient, but I got tired after a while, Ellen, and it seems good to me to have the whole heart of a man.” And then a light whiff of anger flamed up in her. “Why did you come for me anyhow, Ellen Payne,” she cried, “when he might need you? You knew all the time it was you he cared for; you knew all the time it was you he wants! Now hurry, hurry back.”
The conventionalities had fallen from her, and for the first and last time we saw the Elizabeth for whom Alec had cared.
With this godspeed we started on our long drive back, I full of disquieting fears, full of anguish concerning Alec; Ellen still and withdrawn. After a while the strain of silence told on me and the words forced themselves from my lips: “Oh, I can’t bear to think of its happening. I can’t bear to think of having his life hurt this way.”