She looked up at him and he saw then why she had been looking down. "Good-by, Deane," she said a little huskily, her eyes all clouded with tears. "Though how absurd!" she quickly added with a rather tremulous laugh. "We shall be seeing you as usual, of course." But it was more appeal than declaration.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ruth was different after her talk with Deane that night. Ted felt the change in her when he went up to say goodnight. The constraint between them seemed somehow to have fallen away. Ruth was natural now—just Ruth, he told himself, and felt that talking to Deane had done her good. He lingered to chat with her awhile—of the arrangements for the night, various little things about the house, just the things they naturally would talk of; his feeling of embarrassment, diffidence, melted quite away before her quiet simplicity, her warm naturalness. She had seemed timid all day—holding back. Now she seemed just quietly to take her place. He had been afraid of doing or saying something that would hurt her, that had kept him from being natural, he knew. But now he forgot about that. And when Ruth put her hands up on his shoulders and lifted her face to kiss him goodnight he suddenly knew how many lonely nights there had been. "I'm so glad I've got you back, Ted," she said; "I want to talk to you about heaps of things."
And Ted, as he went to bed, was thinking that there were heaps of things he wanted to talk to Ruth about. He hadn't had much of anybody to talk to about the things one does talk to one's own folks about. His father had been silent and queer the last couple of years, and somehow one wouldn't think of "talking" to Harriett. He and Ruth had always hit it off, he told himself. He was glad she had found her feet, as he thought of it; evidently talking with Deane had made her feel more at home. Deane was a bully sort! After he had fallen into a light sleep he awakened and there came all freshly the consciousness that Ruth was back, asleep in her old room. It made him feel so good; he stretched out and settled for sleep with satisfaction, drowsily thinking that there were heaps of things he wanted to talk to Ruth about.
Ruth, too, was settling to sleep with more calm, something nearer peace than it had seemed just a little while before she was going to find in her father's house. Talking with Deane took her in to something from which she had long felt shut out. It was like coming on a camp fire after being overawed by too long a time in the forest—warmth and light and cheerful crackling after loneliness in austere places. Dear Deane! he was always so good to her; he always helped. It was curious about Deane—about Deane and her. There seemed a strange openness—she could not think of it any other way—between them. Things she lived through, in which he had no part, drew her to him, swung her back to him. There was something between his spirit and hers that seemed to make him part even of experiences she had had with another man, as if things of the emotions, even though not shared, drew them together through the spirit. Very deeply she hoped that Deane would be happy. She wished she might meet his wife, but probably she wouldn't. She quickly turned from that thought, wanting to stay by the camp fire. Anyway, Deane was her friend. She rested in that thought of having a friend—someone to talk to about things small and droll, about things large and mysterious. Thoughts needed to be spoken. It opened something in one to speak them. With Stuart she had been careful not to talk of certain things, fearing to see him sink into that absorption, gloom, she had come to dread.
She cried a little after she had crept into her bed—her own old bed; but they were just tears of feeling, not of desolation. The oak tree was tapping against the house, the breeze, carrying familiar scents, blew through the room. She was back home. All the sadness surrounding her homecoming could not keep out the sweet feeling of being back that stole through her senses.
Next morning she went about the house with new poise; she was quiet, but it was of a different quality from the quiet of the day before. Flora Copeland found herself thinking less about maintaining her carefully thought out manner toward Ruth. She told herself that Ruth did not seem like "that kind of a woman." She would forget the "difficult situation" and find herself just talking with Ruth—about the death of her sister Mary's little girl, of her niece who was about to be married. There was something about Ruth that made one slip into talking to her about things one was feeling; and something in the quiet light of her tired sweet eyes made one forget about not being more than courteous. Even Laura Abbott, the nurse, found herself talking naturally to this Ruth Holland, this woman who lived with another woman's husband, who was more "talked about" than any woman in the town had ever been. But somehow a person just forgot what she really was, she told a friend; she wasn't at all like you'd expect that kind of a person to be. Though of course there were terribly embarrassing things—like not knowing what to call her.
Between Ruth and Harriett things went much better than they had the day before. Ruth seemed so much herself when they met that afternoon that unconsciously Harriett emerged from her uncertainty, from that fumbling manner of the day before. The things holding them apart somehow fell back before the things drawing them together. They were two sisters and their father was dying. The doctor had just been there and said he did not believe Mr. Holland could live another day. They were together when he told them that; for the moment, at least, it melted other things away.
They stood at the head of the stairs talking of things of common concern—the efficiency of the nurse, of Ted, who had been with his father more than any of the rest of them, for whom they feared it would be very hard when the moment came. Then, after a little pause made intimate by feeling shared, Harriett told when she would be back, adding, "But you'll see to it that I'm telephoned at once if—if I should be wanted, won't you, Ruth?"—as one depending on this other more than on anyone else. Ruth only answered gently, "Yes, Harriett," but she felt warmed in her heart. She had been given something to do. She was depended on. She was not left out.