“I suppose you don’t see much of Miss Dosia?”
“No, not much as yet.”
Mrs. Snow cleared her throat deprecatingly. “A number of people have been asking me lately if she and Mr. Barr were engaged.”
“Engaged! Why, of course not,” exclaimed Lois contemptuously. “There is not the slightest question of such a thing; in fact, she dislikes him. He simply takes her around because she is at his sister’s.”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Snow, “Miss Dosia dislikes Mr. Barr—does she really, now! I’m sure I told everybody that I knew they couldn’t be engaged, although they do seem to be so much together. So she dislikes him; Ada dislikes him, too. There’s something about Mr. Barr so—well, you can’t exactly tell what it is, can you, but it’s there; something that’s not exactly like a gentleman—not like Mr. Sutton. Ada likes Mr. Sutton so much. It’s such a relief to me to find that Miss Dosia is so sensible; she’s a sweet young girl—a little fond of attention, perhaps, but many young girls are. No, I thank you, my dear, I cannot sit down, I must go now. I don’t think you’re looking well; you must be careful and not overdo.”
“Oh, nothing hurts me,” said Lois again, with a peculiar little smile. The insinuation about Dosia did no more than swell the undercurrent of bitterness by another unnecessary drop.
And Mrs. Snow was gone. Lois had not wanted her, but how alone it was now! Even Mrs. Snow had seen that she did not look well—had pitied her.
The children were asleep up-stairs, the maids were in the kitchen. The clock in the hall ticked. People walked past the house: a man alone—another man; young people, laughing and catching up with those ahead; some shuffling, hobbling toilers; then the light step of a woman returning from work; then another man. Occasionally, but not often, a carriage rolled down the street. The footsteps were always clear and distinct from the corner below to the upper crossing; when it was a train-time, there were more footsteps coming and going—between trains only the solitary footsteps again. She heard the man in the house across the street run up the steps to his front door, and turn the key in the lock. The door opened and shut behind him. The clock in the hall struck the half-hour—it was half-past eight. Oh, if there had been a life-time of misery in that last half-hour, what was there to come? An eternity, an eternity of desolation!
If she were to will him now to come home, if in the midst of the glittering lights and flowers he could hear her cry to him,—“Justin, I want you!”—he would have to come. “Justin, I want you!” She rose and paced the floor, sobbing out the words. No, he would not hear her—he did not want to hear her. Perhaps he was laughing now. She would have gone to him, if he had wanted her, though she had had to crawl upon her knees through thorns and briers. Ah, how she would have gone! A rush of blinding tears filled her eyes. He did not care. She had been ready to cling to him, and sob her heart out on his breast, and beg him to love her and kiss her and stay with her, and he had not seen. She had asked—in the tone that mutely pleaded—You will not leave me so long?—“The train that gets here at a quarter to one?” and he had answered, “Yes, of course.” That was all. If her lips had touched his so coldly when he had said good-by, it was because she had longed to have him notice it, and ask her why. But he had not noticed the coldness, he had not asked her why. He had not wanted any more warmth in her. He did not care!
There came swift moments in those long and passion-freighted hours when the darkened, distorted vision cleared in wonderful flashes that brought the healing of light. In these moments she caught glimpses of herself, not as this draggled, pain-gripped, hungry creature, the prey of frenzied, torturing moods, but as a wife tenderly beloved, a happy mother of little children, the mistress of comforts that her husband had won for her, the appointed dispenser of blessings; a wife tenderly beloved, the true owner of her husband’s heart, a woman whose work it was to grow daily in strength and grace, that she might be more and more his helper, his lover. Even as this glimpse was shut out again, there was the piercing thought: If that were real, and what her darkened eyes beheld untrue! Things are what they are, no matter how one’s distorted vision sees them. If it were really true, no matter how she saw it now, that she was a wife tenderly beloved, with happiness within her grasp, and a miserable woman indeed only that she was blind to its possibilities! She had said, The train that gets here at a quarter to one? with what a longing for him not to leave her, and he had answered, Yes, of course. Nothing could make those words any different. And she wanted him, and he did not care—he did not care. Justin, Justin! The long, long, torturing fangs of self-pity had her by the throat.