Jean cast a startled glance, and sat silent, considering the problem. Her eyes were circled by dark violet stains, as from long wakeful nights; there were hollows at her temples which the cloudy hair could not altogether conceal.
“It sounded rather like it,” she said slowly at last, “but no! indeed I don’t—I love him far too much. But just sympathetic a little, Vanna—and appreciative of my loss! Yesterday when we stood in that little back dining-room if he had said to me: ‘it’s awfully hard on you, darling, but it’s only for a time: put up with it for a time!’ I should have hugged him, and felt a heroine. But he looked out on that awful backyard, and said serenely, ‘oh, it doesn’t matter about views! You never cared about looking out of windows,’ and went on calmly planning where we could put a sideboard. And I wanted to scream! He doesn’t understand, Vanna. He doesn’t understand—”
“Men don’t, dear! It’s no use expecting more than they can give. They pull a wry face, accept a situation, and say no more about it. It would seem to them contemptible to go on grizzling. It’s a fine attitude—much finer than ours; and if you look upon it in the right light, Robert’s unconsciousness is a great compliment. He simply gives you credit for being as good as your word, as he is himself.”
But Jean pouted, and protruded her chin in the old pugnacious fashion.
“But—in our case, I’m not so sure that it is finer! This upheaval is not one hundredth part so great a trial to Rob as it is to me. He’s sorry, of course, and regrets that he did not sell out his shares; but it will be no trial to him to have a small house, with a greengrocer’s shop at the corner of the road. He won’t mind a marble paper in the hall; it won’t cost him a thought to have a drawing-room composed of odd hideosities, instead of my lovely Chippendale. He won’t even notice if the little girls are shabby, and I wear a hat two years. Is there much credit in being calm and resigned over a thing you don’t feel? I nag at the servants, and snap at the children, and grizzle to you, and any one looking on would say: What a saint! What a wretch! but really and truly I’m fighting hard, and slaying dragons every hour of the day; and if I succeed in stifling my feelings and being decently agreeable for an hour or two in the evening, I’ve won a big victory; and it’s I who am the saint, not he! Vanna—do you think I am a beast?”
Vanna’s laugh was very sweet and tender.
“Not I! I quite agree; but I want to help you, dear, to fight to the end. Grumble to me as much as you like. I’m a woman, and understand; but play the game with Robert. You are his Ideal, his Treasure. Be pure gold! Hide the feet of clay—”
“Don’t preach! Don’t preach!” cried Jean; but before the words were out of her mouth, she had rushed across the room and thrown her arms impetuously round Vanna’s neck. “Yes; I will! I will! Oh, Vanna, how you help! Scold me! Make me ashamed! I don’t want anything in the world but to be a good wife to Rob.”
A month later the removal was accomplished, and Jean struggled valiantly to make the best of the altered conditions. She rarely complained—never in Robert’s presence; set herself diligently to the study of economy, and put aside embroidery and painting in favour of plain sewing and mending. In six months’ time the new ménage was running as smoothly as if it had been in existence for years, and neither the master of the house nor his children had suffered any diminution of comfort from the change. Robert’s special little fads were attended to as scrupulously as in the larger establishment; the little girls were invariably spick-and-span, but no observant eyes could fail to notice the change in Jean herself. She was older, graver, less ready to sparkle with mischievous gaiety. She had hidden her trouble out of sight, as years before she had hidden the baby clothes destined for the little dead son, but it had left its mark. With the best will in the world she could not change her nature, and her artistic sensibilities met a fresh wound every time she walked up and down stairs, every time she entered a room, every time she walked down the dull suburban street. She was in the wrong environment, and her beauty-loving nature was starved and hungry.