It was scarcely a felicitous moment for the introduction of Demorests name, and he would have avoided it. But he reflected that he had been seen, and he was naturally truthful. I met Dick Demorest near the church, and as he had something to tell me, we drove down the turnpike a little wayso as to be out of the town, you know, Joanandand
He stopped. Her face had taken upon itself that appalling and exasperating calmness of very good people who never get angry, but drive others to frenzy by the simple occlusion of an adamantine veil between their own feelings and their opponents. Ill tell you all about it after Ive put up the horse, he said hurriedly, glad to escape until the veil was lifted again. I suppose the hired man is out.
I should hope he was in church, Edward, but I trust YOU wont delay taking care of that poor dumb brute who has been obliged to minister to your and Mr. Demorests Sabbath pleasures.
Blandford did not wait for a further suggestion. When the door had closed behind him, Mrs. Blandford went to the mantel-shelf, where a grimly allegorical clock cut down the hours and minutes of men with a scythe, and consulted it with a slight knitting of her pretty eyebrows. Then she fell into a vague abstraction, standing before the open book on the centre-table. Then she closed it with a snap, and methodically putting it exactly in the middle of the top of a black cabinet in the corner, lifted the shaded lamp in her hand and passed slowly with it up the stairs to her bedroom, where her light steps were heard moving to and fro. In a few moments she reappeared, stopping for a moment in the hall with the lighted lamp as if to watch and listen for her husbands return. Seen in that favorable light, her cheeks had caught a delicate color, and her dark eyes shone softly. Putting the lamp down in exactly the same place as before, she returned to the cabinet for the book, brought it again to the table, opened it at the page where she had placed her perforated cardboard book-marker, sat down beside it, and with her hands in her lap and her eyes on the page began abstractedly to tear a small piece of paper into tiny fragments. When she had reduced it to the smallest shreds, she scraped the pieces out of her silk lap and again collected them in the pink hollow of her little hand, kneeling down on the scrupulously well-swept carpet to peck up with a bird-like action of her thumb and forefinger an escaped atom here and there. These and the contents of her hand she poured into the chilly cavity of a sepulchral-looking alabaster vase that stood on the etagere. Returning to her old seat, and making a nest for her clasped fingers in the lap of her dress, she remained in that attitude, her shoulders a little narrowed and bent forward, until her husband returned.
Ive lit the fire in the bedroom for you to change your clothes by, she said, as he entered; then evading the caress which this wifely attention provoked, by bending still more primly over her book, she added, Go at once. Youre making everything quite damp here.
He returned in a few moments in his slippers and jacket, but evidently found the same difficulty in securing a conjugal and confidential contiguity to his wife. There was no apparent social centre or nucleus of comfort in the apartment; its fireplace, sealed by an iron ornament like a monumental tablet over dead ashes, had its functions superseded by an air-tight drum in the corner, warmed at second-hand from the dining-room below, and offered no attractive seclusion; the sofa against the wall was immovable and formally repellent. He was obliged to draw a chair beside the table, whose every curve seemed to facilitate his wifes easy withdrawal from side-by-side familiarity.
Demorest has been urging me very strongly to go to California, but, of course, I spoke of you, he said, stealing his hand into his wifes lap, and possessing himself of her fingers.
Mrs. Blandford slowly lifted her fingers enclosed in his clasping hand and placed them in shameless publicity on the volume before her. This implied desecration was too much for Blandford; he withdrew his hand.
Does that man propose to go with you? asked Mrs. Blandford, coldly.
No; hes preoccupied with other matters that he wanted me to talk to you about, said her husband, hesitatingly. He is
Becausecontinued Mrs. Blandford in the same measured tone, if he does not add his own evil company to his advice, it is the best he has ever given yet. I think he might have taken another day than the Lords to talk about it, but we must not despise the means nor the hour whence the truth comes. Father wanted me to take some reasonable moment to prepare you to consider it seriously, and I thought of talking to you about it to-morrow. He thinks it would be a very judicious plan. Even Deacon Truesdail
Having sold his invoice of damaged sugar kettles for mining purposes, is converted, said Blandford, goaded into momentary testiness by his wifes unexpected acquiescence and a sudden recollection of Demorests prophecy. You have changed your opinion, Joan, since last fall, when you couldnt bear to think of my leaving you, he added reproachfully.
I couldnt bear to think of your joining the mob of lawless and sinful men who use that as an excuse for leaving their wives and families. As for my own feelings, Edward, I have never allowed them to stand between me and what I believed best for our home and your Christian welfare. Though I have no cause to admire the influence that I find this man, Demorest, still holds over you, I am willing to acquiesce, as you see, in what he advises for your good. You can hardly reproach ME, Edward, for worldly or selfish motives.
Blandford felt keenly the bitter truth of his wifes speech. For the moment he would gladly have exchanged it for a more illogical and selfish affection, but he reflected that he had married this religious girl for the security of an affection which he felt was not subject to the temptations of the worldor even its own weaknessas was too often the case with the giddy maidens whom he had known through Demorests companionship. It was, therefore, more with a sense of recalling this distinctive quality of his wife than any loyalty to Demorest that he suddenly resolved to confide to her the latters fatuous folly.
I know it, dear, he said, apologetically, and well talk it over to-morrow, and it may be possible to arrange it so that you shall go with me. But, speaking of Demorest, I think you dont quite do HIM justice. He really respects YOUR feelings and your knowledge of right and wrong more than you imagine. I actually believe he came here to-night merely to get me to interest you in an extraordinary love affair of his. I mean, Joan, he added hastily, seeing the same look of dull repression come over her face, I mean, Joanthat is, you know, from all I can judgeit is something really serious this time. He intends to reform. And this is because he has become violently smitten with a young woman whom he has only seen half a dozen times, at long intervals, whom he first met in a railway train, and whose name and residence he dont even know.
There was an ominous silenceso hushed that the ticking of the allegorical clock came like a grim monitor. Then, said Mrs. Blandford, in a hard, dry voice that her alarmed husband scarcely recognized, he proposed to insult your wife by taking her into his shameful confidence.
Good heavens! Joan, noyou dont understand. At the worst, this is some virtuous but silly school-girl, who, though she may be intending only an innocent flirtation with him, has made this man actually and deeply in love with her. Yes; it is a fact, Joan. I know Dick Demorest, and if ever there was a man honestly in love, it is he.