No evidence of family life had been introduced into this new and loveless house which was at once the envy and curiosity of the village. Their trunks were unpacked in the front bedroom; the sun parlor waited for Lorraine’s taste in furnishing; a thousand and one details which Dan had dreamed that Thurley would settle with her rapturous enthusiasm now awaited Lorraine’s common sense commands. Lorraine suggested nothing of the girl to Dan; she was a woman, narrow in viewpoint and her comprehensions, pretty in a doll sense, without imagination or artistic taste, some one who would do her share in the hill climbing, who would keep house to the degree of dusting even the tops of the window ledges where no one possibly could look for dust without the aid of a stepladder, but guiltless of exuberance of youth and love of romance.
“I knew you always loved Thurley,” Lorraine answered fearlessly. “You knew I always loved you. If Thurley would not marry you and you asked me in her stead, I felt that you would better be married. You might have done some ugly, cheap things, Dan, if you had not been engaged to me. I love you enough to make myself—content, by keeping your house and having your name. I know I’m not Thurley,” she smiled wistfully, “but I’ll always be Lorraine. Some day you may come to care a little more.”
“Oh, ’Raine, you care as much as that?”
“I can’t say it as I’d like,” was her answer.
Dan had gone over to take her gently in his arms. “I’m not good enough for you,” he mumbled, laying his head on her shoulder for a long, silent moment.
Nothing more was said, no mention made of the wild-rose siren who shadowed their happiness. Each understood life was to go on in even fashion. Lorraine would gain her joy and satisfaction from being Dan’s wife, with the pleasure of possessions; she was born to be a housewife and would have been depressed and useless in any other channel. Dan was born to dominate, to be successful in whatsoever he undertook, tyrannical, aggressive, honest and without fear. Dan would find his peace of mind in his business, more and more engrossed in it each month, in the town’s development. Each impersonally would be able to endure the strain of personal unhappiness.
To be able to entertain all the social clubs in the big, sunny parlors with over-stuffed tapestry furniture, the baby grand player, three parlor lamps, a large engraving of “Daniel in the Lion’s Den,” to say nothing of the American oriental rugs and the mahogany grandfather’s clock that played the Canterbury quarters—that was a genuine satisfaction to Lorraine Birge. True, she would have been more happy as the loved wife of Dan Birge, even had they lived as did his rumored ancestor—a trapper’s roving, wild life. But that not being the case, Lorraine had the convenient ability to transfer her happiness into things, into becoming a hospitable young matron who followed conventional ways with amusing docility.
To have chicken salad made of real chicken and not a hint of veal, coffee with endless whipped cream and loaf sugar, fresh peach ice cream and angel food for the refreshment of her Bible class was a positive joy to Lorraine; to be able to help Mary How, the girl who had been “unfortunate,” was a greater joy; to see that the struggling little church had a new carpet and a leather upholstered chair for the minister, to give a set of new anthems to the choir—such things as these dulled the doubts in her heart.
“She must be happy and he must be glad he married her,” was the consensus of opinion. “She spends as much as a queen and Sunday she had on the fourth new dress since she came home a bride, to say nothing of hats.”