"He doesn't want any help!" Alves retorted. "We are not starving now. I can help him. I will help him and be enough for him. He gave it up for me."
"Can you get him friends and practice?" Miss Hitchcock asked sharply. "Can you make it possible for him to do the best work, and stand high in his profession? Will you help him to the place where he can make the most of himself, and not sell his soul for bread?"
These questions fell like taunts upon the silent woman. She seemed to feel beneath them the boast, 'I could have done all that, and much more!' These words were like the rest of this fashionable young woman—her carriage, her clothes, her big house, her freshness of person—all that she did not have. Alves retorted:
"He won't let any one push him, I know. What he wants, he will be glad to get by himself. And," she added passionately, "I will help him. If I stand in his way,—and he can't do what he wants to do,—I will take myself out of his life."
Boast for boast, and the older woman's passionate words seemed to ring the stronger. They looked at each other defiantly. At last Miss Hitchcock pulled her wrap about her, and rose to go. A final wave of regret, of yearning not to be thrust out in this way from these lives made her say:
"I am sorry you couldn't have let me be a little friendly. I wanted to have you to dinner,"—she smiled at the dull practicality of her idea; "but I suppose you won't come."
"He may do as he likes," Alves said, in a more conciliatory manner.
"But he can't!" the girl smiled back good-humoredly. "One doesn't go to dinner without one's wife, especially when one's wife doesn't like the hostess."
Alves laughed at the frank speech. She might have liked this eager, fresh young woman, who took things with such dash and buoyancy, if she could have known her on even terms. As they stood facing each other, a challenge on Miss Hitchcock's face, Alves noticed the doctor's figure in the road beyond.
"I think that is Dr. Sommers coming. He can answer your question for himself."