But she saw nothing familiar in the outstretched form, and never dreamed who it was lying there so near to her and watching all she did. So many had left at Albany and so few taken their places that not more than half the seats were occupied, and those in the immediate vicinity of Josey and the doctor were quite vacant, so the young lady felt perfectly free to act out her real nature without restraint; and she did act it to the full, laughing, and flirting, and jesting, and jumping just as Everard had seen her do many a time, and thought it charming and delightful. Now it was simply revolting and immodest, and he glared at her from under his hat, with no feeling of jealousy in his heart, but disgusted and sorry beyond all power of description that she was his wife. Rossie had stood boldly up before him and asked him to marry her, but in her innocent face there was no look like this on Josey’s,—this look of recklessness and passion which showed so plainly even in the dimness of the car. At last something which the doctor said, and which Everard could not understand, elicited from her the exclamation:
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, and I a married woman?”
“The more’s the pity,” the doctor replied, with an expression on his face which, had Everard cared for or even respected the woman before him, would have prompted him to knock the rascal down. “The more’s the pity,—for me, at least. I’ve called myself a fool a thousand times for having cut off my nose to spite my face.”
“What do you mean?” Josey asked, and he replied:
“Oh, nothing; only, can’t you get a divorce? I don’t believe he cares two cents for you.”
“I know he don’t,” and Josey shrugged her shoulders significantly; “but so long as he keeps me in money I can stand it.”
“And does he do that pretty well nowadays?”
“Yes, so-so; he is awfully afraid of his father, though, and I do not blame him. Such an old curmudgeon. I saw him last summer.”
“You did? Where?”
“Why, at Amherst; at Commencement. I went to the president’s reception, and made Everard introduce me, and tried my best to captivate the old muff, but it was of no use; he took a dreadful dislike to me, and expressed himself freely to his son, who reported to me——”