“I should not like to leave Cecil. He will like for me to be at home with him perhaps,” Mrs. Laurens replied.
“Oh, he will come, too—will you not, Mr. Laurens?” turning the radiant eyes persuasively on his face.
“Do, Cecil, you will enjoy the music,” said his mother.
“And I want you to come, Cecil, very much,” added old Mrs. Barry.
“Very well, I will,” he replied, carelessly, thinking that it mattered little where he went since the door of love and happiness was shut upon him forever by his wife’s treachery.
Doctor Charley came in presently and found them all discussing the opera with great animation. He was disgusted when he heard that Cecil was going and refused Louise’s invitation to himself point-blank.
“I am obliged to return to Paris tonight,” he said, curtly, “and if I were not I am too tired. Besides, I should not think it in good taste to go.”
Cecil colored and looked at him keenly.
“Why not?” he asked, brusquely, and Doctor Charley answered, reproachfully:
“I should not forget as you and my mother seem to do, that your young wife is ill and lonely. I should stay here if I had time and amuse the unhappy little creature.”