But she had not quite been able to fit herself into a life with him. She had not learned what to do with these morning hours while he was asleep; she had not learned to occupy all her energies in useless activities while he was away; in a word, she did not know what to do with the part of her life he did not want, and she could not compel herself to be satisfied in doing nothing with it.
Gathering up the trailing silks of her nightgown and negligée she went back to the pile of magazines and books on the table. She did not exactly want to read; reading seemed to her as out of place in the morning as soup for breakfast. But she could not go out, for at any moment Bert might wake and call to her, and she could not dress, for he saw a reproach in that, and was annoyed. She turned over the books uncertainly, selecting at last a curious one called "Pragmatism," which had fascinated her when she dipped into its pages in the library. She had it in her hand when the door-bell rang loudly.
She stood startled, clutching the book against her breast. Her heart beat thickly, and the color faded from her face and then poured back in a burning flush. The bell rang again more imperatively. The very sound of it proclaimed that it was rung by a collector. Was it the taxi-cab man, the tailor, the collection agency? She could not make herself go to the door, and the third long, insistent peal of the bell wrung her like the tightening of a rack. It would waken Bert, but what further excuse could she make to the grimly insulting man she visualized on the other side of the door? The bell continued to ring.
After a long time it was silent, and she heard the slam of the automatic elevator's door. A second later she heard Bert's voice.
"Helen! Helen! What the devil?"
She opened the bedroom door and stood smiling brightly on the threshold. "'Morning, Bert dear! Behold, the early bird's gone with his bill still open!"
"Well, why the hell didn't you open the door and tell him to stop that confounded noise? Were you afraid of disturbing him?"
He knew how it hurt her, but she was trained not to show it. It appeared to her now that she had been criminally selfish in not guarding Bert's sleep. She saw herself a useless incumbrance to her husband's career, costing him a great deal and doing nothing whatever to repay him.
"That's the trouble—it wouldn't have disturbed him a bit!" she laughed bravely. "Somebody ought to catch a collector and study the species and find out what will disturb 'em. I think they're made of cast-iron. I wonder does collecting run in families, or do they just catch 'em young and harden them."
Sometimes even in the mornings talk like this made him smile. But this morning he only growled unintelligibly, turning his head on the pillow. She went softly past the bed into the dressing-room.