She dressed herself with a new care, putting on a soft yellowish gown with a yoke of creamy lace, unworn for months. The color was more brilliant than ever in her cheeks, her lips redder, her eyes more deeply blue. The children exclaimed over their "pretty mama." She looked younger, more beautiful, than Dosia had ever seen her. She could not help saying:
"How lovely you are, Lois! And you're all dressed up, too; do you expect any one?"
"Only Justin," said Lois.
"Only Justin"! The words brought an exquisite joy with them—only Justin, the one man in all the world for her. There was but a half-hour now until dinner-time. It had passed, and he had not come; but he was often late— Still he did not come; that happened too, sometimes. The two women sat down to dinner alone, at last. The baby woke up afterward, an unusual thing, and wailed, and would not stop. Lois, divested of her rich apparel and once more swathed in a loose, shabby gown, rocked and soothed the infant interminably, while Dosia, her efforts to help unavailing, crouched over a book down-stairs, trying to read. After an interval of quiet she went up-stairs, to find Lois at last lying down.
"It's eleven o'clock, Lois; I think I'll go to bed. Shall I leave the gas burning down-stairs?"
"Yes, please do; he can't get anything now but the last train out."
"And you don't want me to stay here with you?"
"No—oh, no."
As once before, Lois waited for that train—yet how differently! If that injured feeling rose, for an instant, at his not having sent her word, she crushed it back as one would crush the head of a viper that showed itself between the crevices of the hearthstone. She would not pity herself—she would not pity herself! She knew now that madness lay that way.
The night was clear and warm, the stars were shining, as she got up and sat by the window, looking out from behind the curtain, her beautiful braided hair over one shoulder. The last train came in; the people from it, in twos and threes, straggled down the street, but not Justin. He must have missed that last train out. Of course he must have missed it!