Richard knew this, and paid her nobleness its just tribute even while he chafed in his own moodiness. She would do all this, and more than this, for the man she loved; but could she, would she, ever be brought to do it for him?
When alone again with Mildred, Ethel threw her arms round her friend.
'Oh, Mildred! it seems worse than ever.'
'My poor dear.'
'Night after night he sits opposite to me, and we do not speak, except to exchange commonplaces, and then he carps at every deviation of opinion.'
'I know how dreadful it must be.'
'And then to be brought into the midst of a scene like that,' pointing to the door they had just closed; 'to see those happy faces and to hear all that innocent mirth,' as at that moment Polly's girlish laughter was distinctly audible, with Hugh's pealing 'Ha, ha' following it; 'and then to remember the room I have just left.'
'Hush, try to forget it, or the Sigourneys will wonder at your pale face.'
'These evenings haunt me,' returned Ethel, with a sort of shudder. 'I think I am losing my nerve, Mildred; but I feel positively as though I cannot bear many more of them—the great dimly-lighted room; you know my weakness for light; but he says it makes his head bad, and those lamps with the great shades are all he will have; the interminable dinner which Duncan always seems to prolong, the difficulty of finding a subject on which we shall not disagree, and the dread of falling into one of those dreadful pauses which nothing seems to break. Oh, Mildred, may you never experience it.'
'Poor Ethel, I can understand it all so well.'