Alec dropped the socks as if they had been hot. He didn't say a single word. He just stood there and stared and stared. I glanced up for a fleeting second and Alec's eyes were terrible. The vision of them remained with me for days, just as the image of the sun will dance before your eyes after you have gazed at its piercing light for an instant. I turned and looked quickly out of the window. The clock in the hall struck five. I counted it to myself. The last stroke died away, and still Alec stood and stared. He seemed to be willing me to bow down in remorse and shame. I couldn't help it. I tried and I couldn't. I wasn't guilty—oh, no, Alec, I wasn't guilty—but suddenly a hot wave spread over me up to my temples and I hung my head before my brother's condemning gaze.
He turned away then, and without a word went out into the hall.
I didn't know a silence could be so eloquent; I didn't know a silence could hurt. It sobered even Ruth. She slunk quietly upstairs. And when I discovered I was quite alone, I drew a long breath. Then I got up, gathered the poor socks that had caused so much trouble together in a pile and put them back into my work-bag.
I didn't go down to supper that night. Alec knocked on my bedroom door about nine o'clock, and came in.
"Please put the household check-book on my desk," he said shortly; "I will take charge of it hereafter."
"Very well," I replied, perfectly calm; and a thick heavy curtain fell quietly down between Alec and me like the curtain after the last act at the theatre.
CHAPTER IX
HOW can I tell about the days that followed—black, blinding days with Alec's silent displeasure following me wherever I went, Ruth looking at me askance and avoiding an encounter, and I, firm, uncommunicative, and dismal as the grave?