"I did not know that you were such an observer, my dear."
"I know when people's faces please me, and when I shall get to love them," was the oracular rejoinder. "I could never love Mrs. Chester, Langley, though I might get to pity her in time," and Langley attempted no further defence.
Queenie found her first impressions only deepened as the day went on. There was a carping fretfulness in Mrs. Chester's manner to her husband that must have provoked a less sweet temper, but at times he scarcely seemed to notice it. When the child was in the room she seemed to engross all his attention; when she was absent he appeared restless and ill-at-ease. "She can be pleasant to every one but to him," Queenie thought to herself. "Cathy was right when she said that she detested that woman."
But even Queenie and Cathy might have found some pity in their youthful intolerance if they had overheard the brief fragments of a conversation that passed between Mrs. Chester and Langley.
"Oh, Gertrude, I know it is hard; but if you would only try, for his and the child's sake, to control yourself a little; you do not know how unhappy you are making him."
"Does he complain of me to you?" she demanded fiercely; "that would be manly and generous on his part."
"Do you want me to leave off talking to you?" replied Langley in a tone of genuine grief. "Oh, Gertrude, Gertrude, what will you say next? Do you wish to know what he did really say? He asked me if there was nothing he could do for you. He begged me to find out if there was any wish that he could gratify; he—but I cannot repeat it. If you had only heard what he said!"
Mrs. Chester rose feverishly from her couch and caught hold of Langley's dress.
"There it is. No, don't turn from me, don't look so shocked; you know it is his very goodness that makes me worse. Why is he so good to me when I try him so? Sometimes I think that I am possessed with some sort of evil spirit; I can't help tormenting him. Oh, Langley, why did he insist on my marrying him? why did he not leave me in my old home when he knew, when I told him, that I could not ever care for him as I could for that other? when—" but Langley stopped her with a face of horror.
"Hush! don't mention his name! Harry's wife can have no remembrance of that sort. You are a good woman, Gertrude; I have always said so."