They spent the evening sitting in the little unused parlor that Fanchon hated. It was full of heavy stuffed furniture and old-fashioned cabinets. Accustomed to a family gathering in the library, they languished there, watching the clock.
“It’s getting awfully late,” said Emily finally, after an interminable hour. “Where can she be?”
“Emily,” said Mrs. Carter irrelevantly, “I wish you wouldn’t say that Leigh is ‘mashed’ on her. In the first place it’s absurd, and in the second it’s vulgar.”
“But he is,” insisted Emily. “He’d get down in the mud and let her walk on him—like Sir Walter Raleigh’s cloak. He says so.”
“Nonsense!” Mrs. Carter, trembling with nervousness, discovered that it was half past ten. “You go to bed,” she ordered shortly.
After her daughter went up-stairs, she sat for a long time, waiting. She was puzzled by the silence in the library. From time to time she went to the window and looked out anxiously; yet she had no real hope that her daughter-in-law would appear. She felt sure that Fanchon had run away, and the disgrace of it made her face burn. She turned the gas down and sat in semi-darkness, ashamed to look at her own image in the long mirror between the windows.
The Carters had always had such good wives, such loyal, faithful women. She had not failed herself, she had done her best, and William, her first-born, the pride of her heart—must he be disgraced?
She sat there watching and listening until nearly twelve o’clock. Still she heard occasional sounds from the library. Finally, worn out, she crept up-stairs to her room; but even there she continued to listen and tremble at intervals.
At last she heard the sounds of locking up the house and her husband’s heavy step on the stairs.
Mr. Carter came into the room and slammed the door. His wife had crept hastily into bed, and she lay there, shivering a little with dread.