“Not a red. I’ve had enough of him, Myra. You know! As long as he could appear half-way decent, I was willing to carry my end, but he’s going to the dogs now too fast for me. I’ve done with him; he goes to-night, whether he’s able to or not.”
Dosia was not to leave the house until the next day. Mrs. Leverich, impelled by what sometimes seems to be the very demon of hospitality, still pressed her to stay longer, while knowing that her absence would be a relief.
“It is too bad that you want to go like this,” she had said crossly, sitting in gorgeous negligée by the side of Dosia’s bed, her handsome, richly colored face showing mean lines in it. “I looked upon you quite as a daughter; I thought we would have such nice times together. Why on earth couldn’t you let Lawson alone, as I told you to? Then none of this would have happened.” Her tone was complaining, as of one compelled to suffer unnecessarily; there was such a total absence of warmth as to prove that shown before as but a tinsel glow. Mrs. Leverich hated unpleasant things, discomfort of any kind gave her an injured feeling; if there had been a glamour around Dosia the glamour had departed. What little depth the nature of Myra Leverich contained was all in the tie of blood, which made her resent any imputation on Lawson.
“I suppose you’d like to rest up-stairs to-day, and have your meals in your room,” she went on in a businesslike way. “I’ll send Martha up to pack your trunk for you—that is, if you insist on going—if she’s not too busy. The servants have so much to do to-day.”
“Oh, I can pack it myself,” said Dosia. What did one stab the more matter now? She took Mrs. Leverich’s hand impulsively. “You’ve been so good, so kind to me—you’ve given me so many pretty things,”—her voice sank to a whisper,—“it doesn’t seem to me that I ought to keep them now. I want to give them back to you.”
“What is it you say?” asked Mrs. Leverich impatiently. “You speak so low, I can hardly hear you. Oh, these!” She turned to a little pile of jewel-cases on the table. “Why, I gave them to you to keep. Well, if you feel that way about it—These pearls, perhaps, but the pins were quite inexpensive; do keep them, really, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t, you know.”
“I’d rather not,” said Dosia; and her hostess gathered the things when she went out.
It was a long day—a long, long day. From the bed where Dosia lay, she saw the gray clouds shifting, shifting endlessly above through the opening made by the parted window-curtains. What had happened? Nothing—and everything; nothing—and everything!
Gossip reigned in the village, carrying Dosia and Lawson up and down its gamut, even reaching the high crescendo of a secret marriage, with the inevitably hinted smirching reasons therefor. The Leverich ball promised to supply subject-matter for many a day to come. Mrs. Snow, from as early as eleven o’clock in the morning, sat with a white worsted shawl wrapped around her—the sign of elegant leisure—and rocked in the green-bowered and steaming little sitting-room between the geraniums and the begonias while awaiting visitors. She greeted each one who “ran in” with the invariable remark:
“I suppose you know all about the Leverichs’ ball last night. Well, what do you think of the goings-on there?” being intent mousingly on getting every last little cheesy crumb of detail, and peacefully unaware of deep, rich stores concealed in her own family. The incident of the stairway was common property, but Miss Bertha had told nothing of Dosia’s little heart-breaking confidence to her. Her mother was amazed at the very conservative disapproval expressed by this elder daughter, turning for confirmation of her own views to her callers.