"It's a little tough, Phil," he said finally with a revival of courage, pausing in his slow, aimless wandering through the rooms. "It's a little tough after so long, and now."
She could not controvert this; she merely waited to see what further he had to say. He paused presently, his arm on the mantel-shelf, his fingers nervously playing with his pipe.
"What is she like, Phil?"
"Oh, she is lovely! She is the most charming woman that ever lived!"
"You liked her, then; she was nice to you?"
"She is dear and sweet and wonderful! Oh, I didn't know she would be like that!"
His eyes opened and shut quickly. There was an implied accusation against him in the fervor of her admiration for the wife who had deserted him. He groped for something in self-justification with which to confute Lois Montgomery's daughter.
"You found her what you would like your mother to be,—you didn't think her hard or cruel?"
"No."
"You wouldn't have thought her a woman who would desert a husband and a helpless baby and run away with another man?"