His tongue did not falter over the loved, forbidden name—he spoke it quite naturally and conversationally, as if glad that he could introduce it at last into their business.
Joanna's body stiffened, but he did not see it, for he was gazing at the young creeper's budding trail over the door.
"I hope you have a good photograph of him," he continued—"I know that a very good photograph was taken of him a year before he died—much better than any of the earlier ones. I hope you have one of those."
"Yes, I have," said Joanna gruffly. From shock she had passed into a thrilling anger. How calmly he had spoken the dear name, how unblushingly he had said the outrageous word "died!" How brazen, thoughtless, cruel he was about it all!—tearing the veil from her sorrow, talking as if her dead lived ... she felt exposed, indecent, and she hated him, all the more because mixed with her hatred was a kind of disapproving envy, a resentment that he should be free to remember where she was bound to forget....
He saw her hand clench slowly at her side, and for the first time became aware of her state of mind.
"Good-bye, Jo," he said kindly—"I'll tell Father Palmer to write to you."
"Thanks, but I don't promise to take him," was her ungracious fling.
"No—why should you? And of course he may have already made his plans. Good-bye, and thank you for your great kindness in offering the living to me—it was very noble of you, considering what your family has suffered from mine."
He had carefully avoided all reference to his father, but he now realized that he had kept the wrong silence. It was the man who had brought her happiness, not the man who had brought her shame, that she was unable to speak of.
"Oh, don't you think of that—it wasn't your doing"—she melted towards him now she had a genuine cause for indignation—"and we've come through it better than we hoped, and some of us deserved."