I could not help seeing the difference between the two men as they stood together—Martin with his sea-blue eyes and his look of splendid health, and my husband with his sallow cheeks and his appearance of wasted strength—and somehow from some unsearchable depths of my soul the contrast humbled me.
When I introduced Alma she took Martin's hand and held it while she gazed searchingly into his eyes from under her eyebrows, as she always did when she was being presented to a man; but I saw that in this instance her glance fell with no more effect on its object than a lighted vesta on a running stream.
After the usual banal phrases my husband inquired if Martin was staying in the house, and then asked if he would dine with us some day.
"Certainly! Delighted! With all the pleasure in the world," said Martin.
"Then," said my husband with rather frigid politeness, "you will see more of your friend Mary."
"Yes," said Alma, in a way that meant much, "you will see more of your friend Mary."
"Don't you worry about that, ma'am. You bet I will," said Martin, looking straight into Alma's eyes; and though she laughed as she passed into the breakfast-room with my husband, I could see that for the first time in her life a man's face had frightened her.
"Then you knew?" I said, when they were gone.
"Yes; a friend of mine who met you abroad came down to see us into port and he . . ."
"Dr. O'Sullivan?"