"At my expense;" she finished; "for you owe everything to me. If it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't have even what you've got. And now when I've nothing more to give—" Dashing the coffee-pot on the table and huddling her hands over her face, Annie escaped from the room.
For a few minutes Emil remained without stirring. The look of amazement in his peculiar eyes was succeeded by a slight darkening of his whole face. But he was never actually reached by Annie's flashes of anger. They seemed to him like little storms taking place at a great distance. Now with a shrug of the shoulders he began tranquilly to eat his breakfast.
He could not remain insensible to his brother's continued antipathy; therefore, that he might not be reminded of it, he never put himself in the way of seeing Edgar. What would have been the use? Between the now flourishing merchant and himself, there was even less in common than formerly. They would not have found a word to say to each other. And his mother, who had at first sought feverishly to bring about a reconciliation between them, now did all she could to prevent their meeting. Had not Edgar told her that he would never receive him, Emil? Had he not warned her that if she tried to foist Emil's presence upon him, he would insult him to his face?
At times Emil was tempted to urge his mother to leave his brother's house and cast in her lot with his own, but remembering his uncomfortable quarters and the openly hostile Annie, he was driven to silence. The one thing that consoled him was the thought that at least his mother was comfortably housed where she was; at least she was happy in her grandchildren. So the pair, kept apart by poverty, continued to meet like lovers. Anything prettier than the eagerness with which the little old woman went to a rendezvous with her favourite son, it would be impossible to imagine. In vain, actuated by a wish to torment her, Edgar's wife and even the children, put obstacles in the way of the meetings. Now it was a jacket to be mended which was brought to Mrs. St. Ives at the exact moment of her setting forth; it was a sheet to be hemmed, or a stocking to be darned. With every faculty alert, she always circumvented her annoyers, never failing to meet Emil at the appointed spot. This slyness, which is a part of love, brought back her youth.
Had the conditions of her own life been other than just what they were, Annie might have found in Mrs. St. Ives a staunch friend. Now she hated her mother-in-law.
For a time after her angry outburst, she lay face downward upon the bed. But presently, having wept herself into a repentant mood, she was all for running to Emil and putting up her tear-stained face for a kiss. In fancy she pictured him still sitting discomfited; and, trembling with a desire to make peace, she slipped into the passageway. But Emil had quitted the scene of the breakfast, and a glance at the table revealed the fact that he had eaten his fill. Annie passed on to his workroom and, at what she saw through the door, rage, bitter and stifling, once more filled her breast.
Annie had never said a word to Rachel of Emil's constant shortcomings in relation to his company; "But I'll tell her now, I will tell her!" she whispered. She was convinced that Rachel's belief in Emil could not be shaken; therefore she would gratify her desire to expose his faults without further result than putting him to shame. So she argued. But as usual, where her husband was concerned, she reasoned wildly. As sensibly expect a bird of the air to drop its eyes in acknowledgement of a fault, as expect the inventor to show embarrassment for what he had done amiss or failed to do at all.
As it chanced Rachel put in an appearance that afternoon and Annie flew to her. She caught the other by the hand and drew her into her own room. Then she subsided on the sofa and burst into tears.
"What is it, Annie?" Rachel asked. She had never been greatly drawn to Annie, perhaps for some reason she would have died rather than admit.
Annie was nettled.