What was the question in Genevieve's eyes? Was she asking if he were the knight of those women who worked and sweated and burned, or of her and the comfortable women of her class, of Alys Brewster-Smith with her little cottages, of Cousin Emelene with her little stocks, of masquerading Betty Sheridan whose sortie of independence was from the safe vantage-grounds of entrenched privilege?
And all that evening as he watched his wife across the crystal and the roses of the Herrington table, trying to interpret the question that had been in her eyes, trying to interpret her careful silence, he realized what every husband sooner or later awakes to realize—that he had married a stranger.
He did not know her. He did not know what ambitions, what aspirations apart from him, ruled the spirit behind that charming surface of flesh.
Of course she was good, of course she was tender, of course she was high-minded! But how wide-enveloping was the cloak of her goodness? How far did her tenderness reach out? Was her high-mindedness of the practical or impractical variety?
From time to time, he caught her eyes in turn upon him, with that curious little look of re-examination in their depths. She could look at him like that! She could look at him as though appraisals were possible from a wife to a husband!
They avoided industrial Whitewater County as a topic when they left the Herrington's. They talked with great animation and interest of the people at the party. Arrived at home, George, pleading press of work, went down into the library while Genevieve went to bed. Carefully they postponed the moment of making articulate all that, remaining unspoken, might be ignored.
It was one o'clock and he had not moved a paper for an hour, when the library door opened.
Genevieve stood there. She had sometimes come before when he had worked at night, to chide him for neglecting sleep, to bring bouillon or chocolate. But tonight she did neither.
She did not come far into the room, but standing near the door and looking at him with a new expression—patient, tender, the everlasting eternal look—she said: "I couldn't sleep, either. I came down to say something, George. Don't interrupt me——" for he was coming toward her with sounds of affectionate protest at her being out of bed. "Don't speak! I want to say—whatever you do, whatever you decide—now—always—I love you. Even if I don't agree, I love you."
She turned and went swiftly away.