She had expected at once some message from Fox, some sign of sympathy, but when none came she interpreted his silence by her own heart; he was loth, she thought, to show too much joy at once. They could wait! How sweet it was to think that once again they had their lives before them; they were still young, the world had potent possibilities of happiness for them. The sheer joy of the thought drove the blood to her heart; she could not breathe sometimes but lay panting, her head thrown back on her pillows and her arms flung wide and helpless, until Gerty came and with trembling hand administered restoratives and threw up the windows. They called them heart attacks but it did not matter, nothing mattered now; she would begin all over again. Her old life had slipped from her, as though its shackles, having been stricken off, had left no scar. She had been in Washington a week, but she had not asked to see her children; she could not, the thought of them sent a shiver through her; they were the visible and actual links which bound her to the past, the past which her soul loathed.
She had waited eagerly for Fox, aware that he was in the city before her arrival, and when he did not come she still attributed his absence to a reluctance to be too soon to claim her. That he loved her she never doubted, and her heart trembled at the thought of that meeting which must come at last, with all its sweetness, its fulfilment, after her long waiting. That morning she had written him and now she watched the clock, carelessly aware that Gerty English was also watching it, and that the girl seemed disconcerted and awkward with her work over Margaret’s letters and books.
But to Margaret everything outside of that one absorbing fact was of little moment; what Gerty thought of no consequence at all, for while she had made only half a confidante of the girl, turning to her in uncontrollable moments and then relapsing again into reserve, she was actually indifferent to the nature and extent of Gerty’s knowledge; the little secretary seemed to her as unimportant as any other parasite upon the lives of the more fortunate.
Margaret went openly to the window therefore, and drew aside the curtains to watch the long brilliantly lighted street, where the snow lay yet in white drifts between the muddy slush of traffic, and she returned openly to the fire to look at the clock on the mantel. At first the delay had been almost sweet, she liked to dwell upon the thought of seeing him, of being happy again, but at last it grew irksome and she paced nervously to and fro, her hands clasped behind her head, scarcely vouchsafing an answer to Gerty’s occasional questions.
Time passed; it was nearly half past six before her maid came in to announce a visitor and Margaret turned, hiding herself a little in the shadow of the curtain that she might see him first when he entered.
As the door finally opened to admit Fox, Gerty English rose rather hastily and retreated to one of the other rooms, with her arms full of books and papers, and he found himself face to face at last with Margaret.
There was an eloquent silence; he was painfully aware of the change in her, that the delicate hollows in her cheeks were sharpened while her eyes seemed larger and more brilliant, and there was a wistfulness, a soft tremulous happiness and expectation in her expression which touched him to the heart. She had never looked so young, so fragile and so gentle since those old days when as half child, half woman, he had loved her. That dead love lying between them now made an impassable barrier, she could as little rekindle it as she could reclaim a fallen star. Some dim, half interpreted perception of this chilled her heart and stayed the passionate greeting on her lips; she stood a moment looking at him, terribly aware of the calmness of his bearing, his pallor, his dark troubled eye which neither kindled nor blenched at the sight of her, but met hers with a studied gentleness which expressed neither joy nor reluctance. A keen pang of dread tore her heart, but the next instant joy, wild, almost childish joy at the sight of him, welled up and swept away her doubts.
“Oh, William!” she exclaimed with trembling lips, holding out both hands, “at last, at last! It has been eons since we met!”
“And you look ill,” he replied kindly, “Margaret, I hoped to see you well again. How is this?”
Her eyes sought his face, eager, feverish, questioning; her heart trembled, was this all?—this stilted, quiet, commonplace greeting? She checked the cry of reproach which rose to her white lips, and smiled—a wan and pallid smile. “I’m quite well,” she replied with sudden calm; “you forget the months have been long and troubled ones; I suppose I grow old!”