She flushed, and exclaimed a little tremulously: "Well, really, Deane, you needn't be so disagreeable about it!"
Quickly he turned to her, glad to think that he had been disagreeable; that was so much easier than what he had been trying to keep from thinking.
"I didn't mean to be disagreeable, Amy dear. I suppose I've got in the habit of being disagreeable about Ruth: people here have been so hard about her; I've resented their attitude so."
"But why should you care? Why is it such a personal matter to you?"
He was about to say, "She was my friend," but remembering he had said that before, he had anew a sense of helplessness. He did not want to talk about it any more. He had become tired out with thinking about it, with the long grieving for Ruth and the sorrowing with her. When he found Amy their love had seemed to free him from old hurts and to bring him out from loneliness. Wonderful as the ecstasy of fresh love was he had thought even more of the exquisite peace that rests in love. Amy had seemed to be bringing him to that; and now it seemed that Ruth was still there holding him away from it. The thought brushed his mind, his face softening for the instant with it, that Ruth would be so sorry to have that true.
Amy had braided her hair; the long fair braid hung over her shoulder, beautifully framing her face as she turned to him. "Had you supposed, when you all knew her, when she was in your crowd, that she was—that kind of a person?"
His blood quickened in the old anger for Ruth; but there was something worse than that—a sick feeling, a feeling in which there was disappointment and into which there crept something that was like shame.
The telephone rang before he need reply. When he turned from it, it was to say hurriedly, "I'll have to go to the hospital, Amy. Sorry—that woman I operated on yesterday—" He was in the next room, gathering together his things before he had finished it.
Amy followed him in. "Why, I'm so sorry, dear. It's too bad—when you're so tired."
He turned and caught her in his arms and held her there close in a passion of relief at the gentleness and love of her voice that swept away those things about her he had tried to think were not in his mind. Amy was so sweet!—so beautiful, so tender. Why of course she wouldn't understand about Ruth! How absurd to expect her to understand, he thought, when he had blurted things out like that, giving her no satisfaction about it. He was touchy on the subject, he gladly told himself, as he held her close in all the thankfulness of regaining her. And when, after he had kissed her good-by she lifted her face and kissed him again his rush of love for her had power to sweep all else away.