“Yes,” said Farleigh fervently—she was biting her lips—“it is.”
“An’ stayin’ out eight days out o’ seven, an’ runnin’ for office in ten different things at once, an’ wire-pullin’ an’ toadyin’ an’—yes, though I could sink in my grave with shame for sayin’ it—bribin’ men as he can make useful—oh, Mrs. Chalmers, what a life! That’s what I say to Theophilus, on the ice-olated occasions when I happen to see him. What a life!”
Farleigh was silent.
“An’ how do you spend your time?” went on the little woman with tan cotton gloves, more cheerfully. “Makin’ the home more attractive, I s’pose, an’ doin’ everything you can, same as I do, to keep him with you and in some kind o’ sane, contented life? D’ye keep a girl, Mrs. Chalmers?”
“Oh, yes,” though her voice was rather sharp, Farleigh smiled, “I have—yes, I have a maid.”
“You must excuse me if I was impertinent,” apologised Mrs. Budd softly; she had a very nice soft voice, Farleigh couldn’t help noticing, “but I thought maybe since your husband lost his job, you couldn’t afford——”
“Oh, yes!” was it bitterly that Farleigh said it? Bitterly to little Mrs. Budd? “He has money, you see, my husband. He—he doesn’t have to have a job.”
“Now that’s too bad!” commiserated the other woman, gently rocking the “movin’ swing” with her foot. “I mean it’s too bad when anybody doesn’t have a job, man or woman. I always say my job’s makin’ a home for Theophilus—though he doesn’t stay in it,” she sighed. “What’s your job, Mrs. Chalmers?”
Farleigh stirred restlessly in her corner of the swing. “Why—trying to make my husband a success, I suppose,” she said unwillingly—after all, what danger in telling the truth to this simple little thing? Why didn’t Mr. Pix come back, anyway (impatiently); there would be no time before Kent came for her to ask him——
“Men are queer creatures,” reflected Mrs. Budd, looking at her with a certain thoughtfulness; “Mr. Pix, he thought you might help me out with Theophilus, but I guess you can’t. I guess you’ve got just as hard a job as me, and no better off t’ cope with it. Men’re queer creatures, Mrs. Chalmers—they’ve got to go their own way, ’n’ all we can do, I guess, is to sit by an’ keep lovin’ ’em. Isn’t that what you say?”