“He’d better, then—some things.”
“Why, I don’t know. Why shouldn’t he marry her if he wants?”
“I don’t believe she wants. He can’t take her fancy long, though very likely now she thinks he can. That was very pretty of you to give her your trout, this morning,” said Mrs. Gilbert, with a sharp look at her brother-in-law. “She had them for supper, and ate a great many—for your sake, I suppose. It’s you that she wants, William!”
“Does she?” asked Gilbert, with a bitterish accent. “She has an odd way of going about to get me.”
“What has she done?” demanded Mrs. Gilbert, making an instant rush for the breach. Gilbert covered it with a quizzical smile. “Oh!” she continued, plainly enjoying her own discomfiture, “when will men learn that the boomerang is the natural weapon of woman? We’re all cross-eyed when it comes to love-glances; you can’t tell where we’re looking. You think she’s aiming at Easton! Poor fellow!”
“If I stay here talking,” said Gilbert, rising, “I shall bring on your headache again. Good night.”
“Oh, William,” Mrs. Gilbert appealed, “something sad has happened between you and Easton; and I’m very, very sorry. I liked him, too; and I’m grieved to have your old friendship touched. But I know you are not to blame—and don’t you be! I shall hate him if he breaks with you. Good night, my dear. Don’t tell me anything you don’t want to.”
“I won’t,” said Gilbert, kissing his hand to her at the door.
She could not help laughing, but when he was gone she turned to the glass with an anxious air, and after a while began to let down the loose, hastily ordered folds of her hair. She stood there a long time, thoughtfully brushing it out, taking hold of it near her head with the left hand, and bending sidewise as she smoothed it down. In the light of the kerosene lamps which she had set on either side of the mirror, her reflected face looked up from the lucid depths with an invalid’s wanness, which the whimsicality of her mouth and eyes made the more pathetic. Suddenly she glanced round at the door with an unchanging face, and said, “Come in,” in answer to a light rap; and Rachel Woodward entered with a shy, cold hesitation.
“Oh!—Why, Miss Rachel! Do come in!” repeated Mrs. Gilbert, contriving in the last words to subdue the surprise of her first tones. “You won’t mind my brushing my hair? There’s so very little of it! Sit down.”