“Let me do that,” said Meg impulsively, and taking it from the girl, began deftly putting in the stitches.
Charlie watched her a moment, and then remarked, answering the unspoken accusation of her mind, “Ada had so much to do this week that she couldn’t get around to it.”
Meg drew the thread viciously and made no reply.
“She has had to practice a good deal for that concert she is to take part in,” he said.
Still Meg did not speak, and the set of her lips impelled him to add anxiously, yet with a certain amount of dignity, “It is in accordance with my wishes, that she keeps up her music.”
“Yes, of course it is,” answered Meg meekly, for, as she told Robert afterwards in discussing it, “Big as that man is, I would no more hurt him than I would a baby.”
After that, Charlie drew Robert into the conversation. Each man had taken the measure of the other, and approved. They had talked indifferently for awhile on matters pertaining to the town, when the front door opened and a step was heard in the hall.
Robert, looking at Charlie Walker, saw a light leap into his eyes, as he turned toward the door leading into the hall. “What manner of woman is this?” he asked himself, “who can bring such a look to a man’s face after so many years of married life?” All unconsciously his eyes wandered to Meg.
Mrs. Walker was pretty, in rather a coquettish way; with soft brown hair and eyes, a weak red mouth, and a complexion which still retained its girlish fairness. Her hands were little, white, helpless ones, and about her was an air of childish innocence and irresponsibility. Her dress was in keeping with the furnishing of the room, cheaply pretentious and ornate.
Robert felt instinctively that while such a woman could never possess any attraction for him, she was the type some men would die for,—notably, her husband.