Withbursting brain, stunned with unanalyzed pain and bewilderment, as yet but half comprehending the wild words he has unwittinglyheard, Armstrong strides blindly onward, trying to fly, to escape from the fever of his heart, from the sound of the wailing childish voice that has tolled the death-knell of his peace.
He does not care, does not know whither he goes, for the path before him is misty and blurred in the gleaming moonlight, his eyes are dim with fury and anguish. He rolls heavily against an old seaman tottering home from the public-house, and with an oath closes on him; they struggle for a moment, until Armstrong, staggering backward, loses his footing, and falls from the elevated edge of the esplanade to the soft sand skirting the sea, some ten feet below. The physical shock sobers him; he remains where he has fallen, crouching on the shore, his haggard face buried in his hands. Presently he bursts into a low discordant laugh and homely disjointed soliloquy:
"Tom Armstrong, Tom Armstrong, my man, you've made a mess of it at last! It has been pretty plain sailing with you all your life; but now you must take in your canvas, for you've come to grief at last—you've come to grief—to grief—to grief! Oh, fool—fool—fool that I have been! Pip-headed idiot, I deserve my fate!"
And then he falls into silence again, and goes over, day by day, hour by hour, the short sunny spell of his one love-dream. Every look, every word, every smile, every kiss he lives through again with the lurid lamp of truth and disillusion hanging overhead. A fierce brute-like passion seizes him, he springs to his feet with flaming eyes and distorted face.
"Confusion seize her for a hypocrite," he shouts—"a consummate, lying hypocrite! How dare she blind me as she has done? How dare she debase me in my own eyes, and make my life unbearable? What had I done to her, the jade? Only loved her—only loved her better than my life! Oh, how can such women be? Have they no soul, no heart, no conscience? How could she look me in the face with those clear pure eyes, black perjury lodging in her breast all the time, as she has done every day since I married her? How she has lied to me—how she has lied with her lips, with her eyes, with her smile, with every motion of her body, morning, noon, and night! Confusion seize her!"
He dashes on again for miles and miles along the sleeping coast, muttering and gasping, trying to stanch the gaping wound of his love and pride, until the fading moonlight meets the rosy glow of dawn and dies in her embrace; and then, at last thoroughly worn out, he sinks again to rest, his face white and set, the storm of his passion stilled forever, all wrath and bitterness gone from his breast, only pity, remorse, and infinite melancholy dwellers therein. Reason has reasserted her sway, and many dark things are light to him now.
The problem which Addie weakly tried to solve some hours before is clear as day to him she has wronged, and he pities her as sincerely as he pities himself.
"Poor little soul!" he thinks drearily. "Heaven help her, how she must have suffered! And what pluck she must have! Poor little Addie! What chance had she against us all—against my brutish obstinacy and desire, against her greedy, selfish kindred, her miserable surroundings—what chance had she? Not one to stand by her,to save her from me—not even the memory of a lover, I feel sure—not even that! And I called her a hypocrite, a liar, instead of a martyr, a heroine! I have wished her ill because she made her sacrifice without a murmur, nobly, unselfishly; because she sought to build my happiness on the wreck of her own; because she smiled in my face when her heart was perhaps breaking! Oh, forgive me, forgive me, dear; and Heaven teach me how to deal with you gently, unselfishly, tenderly to the end!"
He sits for a full hour without moving, buried in deep thought, mapping out his life and hers, which, alas, is still bound to his till death! And then he rises, undresses, takes a plunge off the rock against which he has been leaning, swims out half a mile to sea, returns, and, much refreshed and quite composed, dresses and walks back to the town, from which he has wandered many miles due west.
He finds his wife, who has evidently not been to bed all night, in her sitting-room, with pale wan face and eyes strained with tears and frightened watching.
"Oh, here you are!" she sobs hysterically, when he enters at last. "Where have you been? I thought you were never coming home again. You—you should not have frightened me so!"
"I am sorry I frightened you, Addie," he says gently. "I walked on to Sandyfort last night, had a swim there, and then came back; the morning was so lovely, I couldn't take to the train. Why did you sit up? That was wrong."
She makes no reply, but presently creeps up to him and lays her hand on his shoulder, stammering out—
"You—you came to the door of the dressing-room? You—you heard me last night?"
He assents mutely.
"Then, Tom," she cries, clinging to him feverishly, "you must forget every word I said; they meant nothing—nothing! I don't know what came over me. I was not myself; I think I was mad. You—you—"
"Don't, dear, don't," he says, with a still cold gentleness, putting her from him; "it is of no use. You can never deceive me again, Addie—never! Give up the effort; it would be only useless pain to me and to you."
"I can not—I can not!" she answers, with a quiver in her voice; for something in his face, in his tone, chills her to the heart and tells her, even more powerfully than his words have done, that he will never believe her again; that smiles or tears, protest or prayer, will fall on his ear in vain meaningless sound. "I can not," she repeats, "because you are mistaken. You must—oh, you must listen to me! I tell you it is not fair to judge; I was not myself at the moment, I was—"
"You were not the 'self' who sacrificed your youth and your liberty so loyally to me at the moment. No; you had cast your chains aside and were inhaling a breath of freedom—unhallowed freedom, you poor little bird," he says with dreary sadness—"and I scared you, Addie. You must let your wings grow again, you must go back to your careless happy maidenhood, get clear of the shadow I brought on your path."
"I can not do that—I can not do that; it is too late now!"
"You can, you can," he says. "Youth has strong recuperative power; you will be the same again, Addie, soon. It will all come back; the boys will bring it, the old home, the old associations will bring it to you. This short time of trial will fade from your memory; like a thunderous cloud, it will pass from your sky; you will find, behind, the clear light of spring. Believe me, it will be so."
She comes over to him, slowly, hesitatingly, and, dropping upon her knees by his side, seizes his hands.
"Don't, Tom; don't talk like that! What is the use? You married me, and nothing can divide us now. I am your wife, and I don't want anything back but your faith in me."
"That you can never recover—at least not in the sense you mean," he says, freeing his hands gently from her detaining clasp and walking away from her side. "Do not ask it, please."
"No," she answers, in a low voice, "I will not again."
She rises slowly to her feet, and stands looking blankly out on the sunny waves. "I will not again," she thinks bitterly, "because anything I have to give is of no value to him now; even if I had the love of Juliet to give—which I haven't nor ever could have for any man—even if I had that, he would not care for it now. I have killed that feeling in him; I can read it in the weary bitterness of his face. His fancy for me was sudden, violent, unaccountable even to himself, and it has died a death as sudden as was its birth—a few wild unmeaning words, and it is no more. So much for man's constancy! It is well for me that I did not love him, that he was not the husband of my choice, or this might have been a bitterer, crueler day than it is. Poor Ariadne! I wonder did she make much of a fuss when she was left on the rock, and for how long did she feel it before the other man—I forget his name—came up and rescued her—eh? Were you speaking?"—aloud, sharply.
"Yes, Addie: I want to know if you will discuss this matter sensibly with me, and help me to arrive at the most satisfactory arrangement for our future lives."
"Certainly, if you wish it; I am quite ready. Had we not better take seats? You must be tired after your long walk."
Her tone is as steady and as matter-of-fact as his own; they sit at the table facing each other.
"We must begin by accepting the fact—"
"That you have had no breakfast as yet. Am I right?"
"Breakfast?" he repeats absently. "Yes, no—I—I don't remember. No; now that I come to think, I have had none as yet."
"Will you allow me to ring and order some for you now?"
"Thank you, you are very kind."
When the servant has retired, he resumes quietly—
"By accepting the fact boldly and clearly that we have made a mistake, you and I, in casting our lots together—You follow me?"
She nods, without speaking.
"But, having done so, it is our duty to look our position steadily, cheerfully, even, if possible, hopefully in the face, and without useless repining or mutual recrimination. We are husband and wife still, in name at least, in the eyes of the law and the world atlarge, and nothing but death can free us from that self-imposed bondage."
"Nothing," she echoes absently.
"Nothing but a contingency which is not likely to occur, and which therefore I need not discuss with you. The question which now must occupy us is how to make our future lives as bearable as we can in the circumstances. If you wish it, we can manage to live apart without much—"
"No no," she breaks in vehemently, "not that—not that! If you mean that I am to live at Nutsgrove without you, I will consent to no such arrangement. I will never return there without you; you can not move me in that."
"I do not wish to do so. The plan I would propose is that you and I return there together, as we had originally intended, and, for a couple of years at least, keep up before the world in general, and your brothers and sisters in particular"—here he winces for the first time—"the semblance, the form of union. Do you feel equal to such an undertaking? Would it be too much for you?"
"No," she answers, almost cheerfully; "it would not. I could do my part easily."
"Yes," he says, with a melancholy smile, "I suppose you could. You—you are a capital actress, Addie."
She flushes quickly.
"Not as good as you think—oh, Tom, not as good—"
But he goes on, heedless of the interruption—
"The task will not be so difficult as it may appear to you now. Life at Nutsgrove will be very different from what it has been here. I, of course, shall be away at my business all day, and shall have many interests to occupy me which will not touch your life. You will have the boys and the girls to look after, your household affairs, and, I suppose, social engagements which will fill your days pleasantly, I hope. Then it is decided we return together? You have no other plan you would like better to suggest?"
"No; let us go home," she says, shortly.
"So be it. We agree to take up the burden of our separate existences as bravely and as cheerfully as we can, having one tie in common—the secret of our mistake to hide between us. At the same time, if you think it necessary or advisable to confide in your brother Robert and your sister Pauline, I will raise no objection. You have never had, I heard you say one day, any secret from them as yet."
"No; I don't think I have—at least, not of any importance," she interrupts hurriedly; "but—but I would rather have this now. I would rather—oh, much rather they did not even suspect!"
"I think you are right. I think, after mature deliberation, that the more jealously we guard our unfortunate secret—for a time at least—the better it will be. For you must know, my dear, that in cases of this kind—in fact, in almost all cases of family disagreements and domestic ruptures—no matter how much the man be in fault—and he is generally the leading culprit—the burden of blame of trouble, of disgrace even, always falls heaviest on the weakest shoulders. And you are very young yet, Addie, and you have not many friends; that is why I have taken it upon myself to adviseyou as I have done, to advise you to bear for the present the shelter of my name and protection."
"How good you are—how very good!"
"Hush! You know nothing of me—nothing. Do not criticise, but help me to render you justice, to repair the wrong I have done you in my—"
"Wrong—wrong? What wrong have you done me?" she asks wildly.
"You are unnerved and excited from want of food and of rest. Here comes breakfast at last. Afterward you must go and lie down and have a good sleep; you look as if you wanted it badly."
In constrained silence they finish their meal; then he rises wearily.
"I am going down to the club for an hour or two, and then I shall have a few letters to write. I hope to see you quite refreshed by dinner-time. Ugh, how dark and cold the morning has become, hasn't it? Coming along, I noticed the storm-warning up at the coastguard station. I'm afraid we're in for bad weather."
"Yes; it looks like a change."
"Would you like to be moving, Addie? Have you had enough of the sea? We've had a pleasant fortnight here, and splendid weather for the season. If you'd like to begin moving slowly homeward, I'm quite ready."
"Very well; let us move before the storm then."
"I'll write to-day to Nutsgrove to prepare them for our arrival at the end of the week."
"Thank you. That will be very nice."
He walks slowly to the door, hesitates for a moment, then returns to where she sits toying with her spoon.
"You—you bear me no ill-will, Addie? We—we are friends still, are we not?"
"Oh, yes, I suppose so—whatever you like!" she answers coldly. "You have taken upon yourself the definition of our relationship; let us be friends certainly, if you think it judicious."
He looks at her for a moment with frowning brow, then says shortly—
"That is all I have to say. We understand each other, I think, at last."
"Do we?"
"And this subject need never be reopened between us; do you hear me, Addie?"—a little sternly, for she is humming the refrain of a flippant little song that the band had played on the night before. "I wish the discussion of this subject not to be renewed. I have said all I want to say, and I have heard all I want to hear from you. Until this day twelvemonth I refuse to listen to another word on the subject; on that day we can compare notes and give each other suggestions for the improvement of our programme of life. Are you listening? Do you hear me?"
"Oh, yes, I hear you! Good-morning!"
Later on in the day Addie sits on the rocks where she stood on the night before muffled in her woolly wrap, her life almost as free from restraint and vexatious watchfulness as if she still bore her maiden name. Yes, her days are her own again in all that minor detail ofmovement that makes the sum of existence; she can cast aside every cumbersome article of hertrousseau, take off her hat, her cloak, even her shoes and stockings, and paddle in the cool waves, unheeded, unadmonished. But, such is the inconsistency of woman's nature, with the power of this freedom for which she has so lately panted, all desire to exercise it has passed away; she sits very still and subdued, wrapped up in her cloak, shivering a little, her gray eyes fixed in troubled perplexity on the tumbling waters.
"Yes," she thinks, with a dreary sigh, "I suppose he is right; there is no use in crying over spilled milk; it is better to accept the inevitable, and make the best of it. Fretting and worrying won't mend matters for him or for me. And, after all, have I not the best things in life left to me still—my own darling brothers and sisters and the home I love? They ought to be enough, surely, surely! Oh, yes, yes, I will do as he wishes! I will put the past from me, forget it, and enjoy the good things left to me. Is it my fault? I never meant to hurt or harm him—Heaven knows that—he knows it too—therefore why can't I be happy by and by? Oh, I must, I must"—with a burst of protesting passion—"and I will!" Then after a long wistful pause—"If I were not so heavily weighted! If I had any hope of paying him back, of lightening the debt! But I have none—none! I got my chance. I've had my day, and lost it—lost it forever!"
SoMrs. Armstrong's honeymoon is cut short. Four days later she is again driving up the well-worn avenue of Nutsgrove.
It is a lovely afternoon, and, as Addie peers out of the window, a great gladness fills her heart, for every flower seems to bow its head to her in fragrant welcome, and standing on the doorstep are Pauline and Lottie waving their handkerchiefs, surrounded by half a dozen dogs giving joyous tongue, while the Widow, at a discreet distance inside the porch, is purring melodiously.
"How lovely it all looks!" she cries, hugging the girls rapturously. "How jolly it is to get home again! It seems ages and ages since I left you all. Oh, Tom"—turning to her husband, who is trying to silence the dogs—"don't stop them! They're only telling me how glad they are to have me back—their bark is music."
"You look a little tired," says Pauline, critically.
"We've been traveling since eleven. Oh, how I should like a—"
"Cup of tea. Addie, Addie, I see you retain your old habits!" laughs Pauline. "Come inside; it's all ready in the drawing-room."
"You thoughtful child! Well, Polly, I think this is as near heaven to me as any spot on earth could be," she says a little tremulously, sinking upon the sofa beside the tray. "No let me, dear; I'm not too tired for that. Where's Tom? Where's my husband?"
"Oh, he has disappeared, as any well-behaved husband would in the circumstances! I see you have him in training already, Addie."
"But he might like a cup of tea; he has not had anything since breakfast."
"He'll have a glass of wine or something in the dining-room," Pauline declares lightly. "Don't bother about him, now, but tellus about everything. You've had a real good time of it, haven't you, Addie?"
"It was very nice," she answers, with cautious guardedness—"weather lovely, delicious bathing in the morning, drives in the afternoon, and then the band on the pier at night. I think I told you all about it in my letters."
"Addie," asks Lottie, her great staring eyes fixed on her sister's uneasy face, "what's a honeymoon like? Is it very nice? Do you think I shall enjoy my honeymoon?"
"Oh, Lottie, how can I tell. It depends."
"Depends entirely whether you spend it with Mr. Right, I should say, my dear," puts in Pauline.
"With Mr. Right? I don't understand. Who is Mr. Right, Pauline? I don't know him."
"Well, I suppose Mr. Right is not Mr. Wrong, Lottie. That's all I can tell you about him at present."
"Oh, I see, I see! What a good way of putting it! Addie, is your husband Mr. Ri—"
"Lottie, if you ask me another question until I have finished my tea, a certain brown-paper parcel at the bottom of my trunk addressed to you will go to-morrow to the Children's Hospital at Kelvick," answers Addie desperately.
Lottie's voice is not heard for twenty minutes.
"Now is your time, girls, to tell me everything about every one," Addie says presently, her spirits reviving—"dear Aunt Jo, and the boys?"
"All flourishing. I had a letter this morning from Aunt Jo, inclosing her grandmother's—Lady Susan Something's—famous recipe for catchup promised to you as a wedding-dower, Addie. And Hal likes his school, for a wonder, immensely; he is full of football, and cricket, and the rest of it. It seems to me that the paths to knowledge are made as flowery as possible at Dr. Jellett's."
"And Bob, dear Bob?"
"Oh, Bob's coming on too! But he has to begin at the beginning, you know!"
"Of course, naturally; he couldn't be expected to turn out at once a full-blown clerk."
"No," allows Pauline, with a light laugh, "he couldn't. He is learning to write now—not a soul in the office could read his drafts at first—and after that he'll have to turn his attention to spelling, and then, I believe, to the multiplication table."
"Oh, dear," exclaims Addie, very much taken aback, "is it as bad as that? I'm afraid he'll be rather a nuisance in the office than otherwise."
"Yes, I expect so, for the present. But he'll tell you all about it himself on Sunday."
"Is he coming on Sunday?"—eagerly.
"Of course! Why, you seem to forget that Kelvick is only seven miles off and they shut up shop—I mean, the office closes early on Saturday. I expect we shall have him over here every week—won't it be jolly, Addie?—and Hal too."
"And Hal too?"
"Yes. Jellett's boys are free to return to the bosom of theirfamilies, if they like, from Saturday to Monday; and I believe Mr. Armstrong wrote himself to tell him to be sure to come and welcome you home. Didn't he tell you?"
"No."
"Then he meant it as a surprise, I suppose."
"And—and, Addie," puts in Lottie, cautiously recovering voice, "Sunday is my birthday, you know, and I'm going to ask Mr. Armstrong if we may all have tea in the woods as usual. Do you think he'll let us? He is not a strict Sunday-man, is he, Addie? I hope not."
"Sabbatarian, you mean. I don't know. You can tap his theology yourself, Lottie."
"I will the moment he comes in. I'm not a bit afraid of him, Addie. I don't think he's at all the bugbear the boys used to make him out long ago. Don't you remember, before you were mar—"
"Come along, come along," cries Pauline, springing to her feet, "and see everything! Your room has been done up beautifully, Addie, and there are new carpets everywhere. And who d'ye think you have got for your housekeeper, my dear? Why, old Sally herself!"
"Old Sally—mother's old nurse?"
"The same. It seems Aunt Jo recommended her to your husband's patronage on the score of her serf-like fidelity to the family and her many other virtues, her bargaining powers,et cætera; and so he appointed her housekeeper. She was in the hall when you came in; but you didn't notice her; and no wonder—I doubt if you'll recognize her even after introduction—she's so grand in her black silk dress and lace cap, with manners, my dear, quiteen suite. You can see she means to live up to the tone of your restored establishment, Addie. You could never imagine her skirmishing at the back-door now, with abusive butchers and bakers, or trying to wheedle a pound of tea out of the grocer—oh, no!"
"Addie, Addie, look at the new piano; isn't it grand? 'Annie Laurie,' even without the variations, sounds lovely on it, and when you put down the pedal it's quite like a band."
"Oh, don't bother about the piano, Goggles—plenty of time to see that. Come out and look at your ponies, Addie—such a delightful pair!—and the phaeton to match. Oh, won't it be grand, us three bowling along in it all over the country! The groom says they go at such a pace. Come on, come on; you look half asleep, Addie! What's the matter?"
"Joy," answers Addie, with rather a shrill laugh—"joy tempered by a touch of indigestion. How can I swallow all these good things at a gulp? Let me dispose of the piano before I attack the ponies and old Sally inpoult de soie. Give me breathing-time, sisters, I pray you."
Saturday brings the boys, boisterous and jubilant. The five young people spend the balmy September noon poking about all the haunts of the past, paying pilgrimages to the shrine of their childish pleasures and mishaps, hunting up scraps of personal property, moldy relics in outhouses and farm-sheds; and Addie, all the troubles of her short matronhood laid aside, in a plain unflounced skirt—thesimplest in hertrousseau—thickly booted, trips by their side and enters into all their pleasures with a heart, for the time being, as light as their own.
It is after six o'clock when they return, stained, dusty, disheveled, to prepare for dinner and a decorous greeting of their host.
"I say, Addie," asked Bob incidentally, "isn't it time your skipper was due? Does he stick to the shop all Saturday too?"
"I don't know," she answers, suddenly, sobered by this the first allusion to her absent lord. "This is the first Saturday I've spent here since—since I was married. But he always comes home on other days at six; he ought to be in now. Ah, here is a note from him on the table! I—I wonder what's it about?"
She reads it through quietly, and then says, in a low voice—
"Mr. Armstrong is not returning to dinner this evening. He has business detaining him in Kelvick."
"Not coming back this evening! Good man, good man!"
"More power to you, Tom!"
"Hurrah!" shout the boys in a breath.
Addie colors to the roots of her hair, and walks away slowly without a word.
"You shouldn't, boys," interposes Pauline, with a sage nod of her tumbled head. "Remember, she is his wife now, and may not like your—your expressing yourselves so freely."
"Oh, stuff, Polly! She does not mind a bit—why should she? She'll be one of ourselves to the end of the chapter. I don't see a bit of change in her."
"Don't you?" retorts Pauline. "Well, I do—a great change; and you'll agree with me before long, I think."
"You mean to insinuate that she'd take Armstrong's part against us? Not she! Addie's grit to the backbone."
"Time will reveal who is right."
"There goes the first dinner-bell!" shouts Lottie, rising. "I hope you're in splendid appetite, boys, because we've famous dinners now, I can tell you—regular young dinner-parties every day—soup, entries, joints, such sweets, and such desert!"
"My!" exclaims Hal, smacking his lips and rubbing the middle of his waistcoat vulgarly. "'Times is changed,' as the dogs'-meat man said."
Meantime Addie, with lowering face and trembling hands, was divesting herself of her soiled dress, pained and indignant.
"I won't stand it—I won't! The house is his, not ours; and, if he won't enjoy his own home, we must clear out of it—that's all. Business indeed! I don't believe a word of it; he hadn't more business in Kelvick after hours than I had. He just remained there shut up in that dingy parlor all alone because he thought we should be happier without him—because he felt he'd be in the way in his own house, one too many at his own dinner-table. It's simply carrying things too far, and I won't stand it. I'll tell him so to-morrow, whether he snubs me or not. He can't silence me for a year, he'll find—I'll tell him so to-morrow."
But the morrow does not bring Mr. Armstrong to Nutsgrove. After a long drowsy morning spent shut up in the family-pew,Addie proclaims herself invalided with a racking headache, and unable to take part in the celebration of her sister's birthday. So the family, among whom sympathy with the sick and afflicted is not a distinguishing trait, after vaguely suggesting tea, soda-water, eau-de-Cologne, and the rest, depart grove-ward with a goodly hamper, leaving her alone on a couch in the drawing-room window, limp and feverish with pain.
It is dark before they return in boisterous spirits, full of their adventures, and with countenances smeared with blackberry-juice.
"Oh, Hal, I wish you would not shout so!" pleads Addie. "If you could feel how your voice goes through my head!"
"Beg pardon, I'm sure, Addie; I quite forgot all about your head—at least I thought it was all right by this," Hal answers, in a voice that plainly says, "What a fuss to make about a bit of a headache!"
"Perhaps it would be better for you to go to bed, Addie," Pauline suggests briskly.
So Addie retires and sits by her open window, with wide dry eyes and burning cheeks.
"How selfish they are!" she mutters petulantly. "They never even asked if I was better. Oh, they have fallen off somehow—all of them! They're not quite the same—there's something changed. I—I wonder is the change in them, or in me, or in both? I wish I knew. The last time I had a headache it was so different—so different! I remember it was on the day after that long drive in the sun to the Lover's Leap; and, when I came home, he had the room all darkened, and my head bandaged with a handkerchief steeped in iced eau-de-Cologne, and the band stopped in the hotel garden all the afternoon, and—and everything I could want by my side. And I never even thanked you, Tom; I don't think I felt grateful. What a wretch I was—what a wretch!"
Mr. Armstrongdoes not return home until after office-hours on Monday. His wife, hearing him in the hall, hurries out to meet him as he is about to enter the room, and stands with her back against the door, blocking the way. She looks up into his face and begins impetuously before she has time to lose courage.
"Where have you been? Why did you not return home on Saturday? What do you mean by—"
"Did you not receive my note?" he asks in surprise. "I wrote explaining to you the cause of my absence. Was not my note delivered?"
She feels her courage oozing out, and makes a desperate rally.
"What if I refused to accept your explanation—to believe in your excuses?"
He shrugs his shoulders faintly.
"I have no remedy to suggest; I think the reason given was a credible and acceptable one. Business detained me until it was too late to return, and the next day I rode over to Crokestown to see my cousin, Ellen Murphy, and she made me remain to dinner. I can not improve that statement of affairs, I fear, so will not try.Your sisters are in the drawing-room. Will you not let me enter, my dear?"
She draws back, and follows in, mute and cowed.
"Well," he says pleasantly, "let me hear how my precious household got on in my absence. The boys came over of course? That's right. I am sure you enjoyed yourselves all together famously; yesterday was such a lovely day, too!"
"I didn't," says Addie shortly, "for I had a villainous headache all day."
"I'm sorry to hear that. Then you did not celebrate Lottie's birthday in the grove, as you had intended?"
"Oh, yes! They all went and enjoyed themselves very much, I believe. I stayed at home, my head was too bad."
Armstrong making no reply, the subject drops.
After dinner, Pauline, who has left her tennis-racket lying on the grass, runs out to fetch it, and is immediately followed by her younger sister, who begins eagerly—
"Oh, Polly, did you hear her about the tea in the grove and that stupid old headache, making such a ridiculous fuss? You were right about her, after all, you see. I must say I never could have believed Addie would become such a tell-tale! Perhaps, now that we're gone, she'll tell a lot more—tell that we treated her unkindly, made her head worse with the noise. Perhaps Mr. Armstrong will never let the dear boys come here again. Oh, Polly, let us go back and stop her telling more!"
"No, it is not necessary; she's not telling any more. I don't fancy," continues Miss Pauline, in a tone more of musing analysis than for the information of her eager companion, "that Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong have quite as much to say to each other when they're alone as when we're keeping them company."
"No, Polly? Why? What makes you think that?"
"Several things make me think it," Pauline replies, shaking her head. "Addie has not seen fit to confide any of her secrets to me, though in the old days we never had a thought apart; but, all the same, she can't take me in—can't bandage my eyes as easily as that. No, no, my young lady, no!"
"I should think not indeed," says Lottie, with wily emphasis. "If she tries to deceive you, Poll, she'll find she's mistaken—pretty soon, I fancy. And so you think, Poll, you think—"
"I think," resumes Pauline, swallowing the bait, "that all is not quite on the square between Addie and her vitriol husband."
"But, Polly, they seem so attached to each other. How do you make that out? They are always anxious to please each other. He gives her everything she can possibly want, and she never contradicts him, or answers him sharply, or loses her temper, or anything."
"That's just where the main hitch is, you little simpleton! Don't you see they're much too polite, too ceremonious, too anxious, as you put it, to please each other to be a happy couple? Don't you see that their attitude of studied care, of smiling deference, is just assumed to hide something they don't want the world to see?"
"How sharp you are, Polly! How did you guess all that?"
"Instinct, I suppose—I have no experience to go by. And instincttells me that it argues an extremely unwholesome state of domestic affairs to see a husband as polite, as courteously attentive to his wife, as Tom is to Addie."
"Yes, yes; you are right; he is very polite to her."
"He is treacherously so—smolderingly so, if there is such a word. To see that man walk across the room to relieve her of her cup, stand up to open the door for her when she passes out, hand her cushions, footstools, newspapers, in the way he does, with that sort of heavy mechanical gallantry, is simply unnatural, unwholesome, volcanic. Something will come of it sooner or later, mark my words, Charlotte Lefroy!"
Charlotte draws a quick excited breath, and clutches the sibyl's slim young arm.
"Oh, Pauline, it's like a picture out of a novel! Go on, go on! Something will come of it—eh?"
"For instance, now, you, in your ignorance and childish inexperience, imagine that Addie is at this moment pouring all her grievances into the marital ear, cooing perhaps at his feet, like the honeymoon pairs in 'Punch,' telling him how brutally we and the boys behaved to her while he was away."
"Yes, yes; say I imagine all that. Now what do you imagine, Pauline?"
"I imagine quite the contrary. We can easily see who is right by peeping through the Venetian blinds into the drawing-room. I don't think the shutters are closed yet."
The two girls step lightly back and peep. They see Addie seated at her end of the table, cracking nuts, with absorbed downcast face, a little red with the exertion, and Mr. Armstrong, at his end of the table, sipping his wine silently, apparently occupied with manufacturing thoughts, the evening edition of the "Kelvick Mercury" resting on his knee.
"There," hisses Pauline triumphantly—"there! Did I not tell you? There's the attentive, courteous husband, returning after a three-days' absence to the bosom of his family! There's a picture after Hogarth for you with a vengeance, and they not a month married yet! Oh, fie!"
"Pauline, Pauline, how clever you are!" breathes Lottie ecstatically. "I wish I could see things like you."
"Well, Lottie, that's a picture I'd rather not see anyhow. It inspires me with no feeling of elation, I can tell you; on the contrary—"
"But, Pauline, I heard you say twenty times that Addie's marriage was not like any one else's, that she could not be expected to care for Mr. Armstrong as if he were one of her own class, young and a gentleman, and all that, you know!"
"I know. The marriage was one of convenience on his side—of necessity almost on hers; but, all the same, it's rather too soon for them to have found out their mistake—rather too soon. I suppose it's all Addie's fault. She's so awfully hot-blooded and impulsive. Bob and I are the only two with heads in any way steady on our shoulders. What a little fool she will be if she quarrels with her bread-and-butter before the honeymoon is out—such good bread-and-butter too!"
"And you think she may, seriously?"
"I don't know. I can't tell. I'm almost afraid to turn my thoughts to the third volume"—with a quick impatient sigh. "I hope it will not end as it did with the Greenes of Green Park. If it does that will be a precious bad look-out, Lottchen, for you, for me, and for the boys—precious bad!"
"The Greenes of Green Park—the people in that pew near us in church, who used to be near us—the tall good-looking man with the glasses, and the pretty lady with the golden hair? Oh, I know! Tell me about them, Polly; how did they end?"
"Sir James Hannen," says Polly shortly; "that's how they ended. And nobody knew anything, even suspected anything, until the very last. They were the model couple of the whole country. Grandison Greene he used to be called, though his real name was Adolphus; but he was named Grandison, after a very courteous old swell in some book or other, on account of the fascinating elegance of his manners to the world at large and to his wife in particular. You never saw anything like their picturesque devotion to each other; they seemed to walk through matrimony in a sort of courtly minuet; and I've heard Lady Crawford tell auntie that it would just bring tears to your eyes to see that man shawl his wife in the cloak-room after a concert or dance. And this, my dear, went on for years and years, until one morning Mrs. Greene ran home to her mamma—she was a Miss Pakenham of Clare Abbey—and said she couldn't stand it any longer. And then it all came out in the Courts, for she refused to return to him, and he sued her publicly to make her do so, for a restitution of something or other—I forget the legal way of putting it. Any way, it came out that they simply loathed each other, and that Grandison had led the unfortunate woman the life of a fiend behind the scenes."
"Oh, Pauline, how truly thrilling!"
"It came out that, when he was wrapping her up so tenderly before every one, he used to pinch her poor arm until she was ready to scream with pain, but daren't; that he used to stealthily crunch her poor little foot when he was bending lovingly over her or bowing her out of the room; that he used to run pins into her flesh when he was adjusting a flower or knot of ribbons on her shoulder. You never heard such revelations. Aunt Jo hid all the papers at the time; but Bob and I found them, and read everything. He was a regular Bluebeard; and the very first evening I saw Armstrong offer his arm to Addie to bring her in to dinner, and the sort of shy shivery way she took it, made me think on the instant of Grandison Greene and his—"
"Polly, Polly," breaks in Lottie excitedly, "do you think Mr. Armstrong and Addie have come to that? Do you think he runs pins into her, pinches her when we're not looking? Oh"—after a pause, with a burst of relief—"I don't believe it! Because, if he did, she'd pinch him back; I know she would. She is not like Mrs. Greene; she has a spirit of her own, has Addie. She'd pinch him back just as hard, and then we should find out."
"Lottie, don't argue like a fool! I never said Armstrong ill-used her actively, never said he was a born brute like Adolphus Greene, though he is not the style of a man I should care to call husband. Igive him his due, and honestly believe he would not touch a hair of her head unkindly, no matter what provocation he got. No; what I mean is that they have simply found out that they are utterly unsuited to each other—had a bit of difference, perhaps. I dare say he taxed her with marrying him for his money, and she answered back something of the kind; and the upshot was, they determined to hide their discovery from every one, even from us, which was a vain and foolish resolve so far as I am concerned."
"I should like to know, I should like to find out," murmurs Lottie fervently. "I'll watch them closely, I'll ask Addie questions when she's off her guard, I'll—"
"Lottie," cries Pauline sharply, facing her sister, "if you attempt to do anything of that kind, if you ever by word, look, or act, betray what I have so foolishly confided to you, you will rue the day to the end of your life! Do you hear me? You don't know what mischief you'll do. You are an unfortunate child at the best of times, Lottie; you seldom come into a room without making some one uncomfortable with your luckless remarks and questions."
"I don't mean to make them uncomfortable," she answers tearfully.
"I don't say you do; but the effect is the same. And, in this case, if you thrust yourself into the fray, you will simply ruin us all."
"Oh, how, Pauline?"
"You will just spring the mine on which our present prosperity flourishes, and bring us to the wall again. We're very well off just at present. Though it is not necessary to proclaim the fact from the house-tops—Bob may grumble as he likes about the desecrating breath of vitriol and all that—I maintain—and am not ashamed to do so—that the new state of affairs suits my constitution and my tastes better than the old. It is far pleasanter to be well fed, well clothed, well housed, than not; pleasanter any day to partake of stalled ox than a dish of herbs; to lie on patent spring beds than on mattresses teased in the reign of James the First; pleasanter to tread the earth in satin shoes than in cobblers' clogs. To bring the case nearer to your heart and understanding, Goggles, it is pleasanter to nibble plum-cake than dry bread, isn't it?"
"It is—it is," murmurs the little maid pathetically. "Who's—"
"'A denigin' of it?' Not I, indeed! Very well, then; as we both agree on that point, let us combine to agree on the other, which is more important—namely, to do everything to keep our position among the flesh-pots, which is anything but a stronghold, I greatly fear, just at present. Do you agree?"
"I do—I do!"
"Then let me impress on you, my child, a piece of advice which you will find invaluable, not only at this crisis, but at many another of your life. Never interfere between man and wife; let them keep their secrets, hide their troubles, fight their battles unmolested, unobserved. Do not seem to see, feel, or understand what is going on. Be deaf, dumb, blind to all that does not concern your immediate person, or else you may just find yourself in Queer Street, before you know where you are."
"Queer Street? Where is that, Pauline? I never heard of it."
"Queer Street is not a nice street to live in, my dear. Almost every town has a street of that name. Queer Street in your case would probably mean Miss Swishtale's Collegiate Academy for Young Ladies, Minerva House, Kelvick, where the little Douglases were sent to school by their step-mother, you know. You wouldn't like to be there?"
"No—oh, no!"
"Then keep my advice in your heart."
CertainlyMiss Pauline Lefroy is right. Life at Nutsgrove under the newrégime, so far as creature-comforts go, is a vast improvement on the old. Its contrast was at first too great to be entirely satisfactory to the nerves of Colonel Lefroy's unsophisticated daughters; but this feeling soon wore away, and they dropped naturally and contentedly into the reign of order and methodical respectability inaugurated by Mr. Armstrong's well-trained servants. They learned to answer to the chime of bell and gong, to enter a room quietly, and, above all, to dress, as ladies are supposed to dress, neatly and becomingly. The dogs followed the example of their mistresses, and no longer dragged their muddy paws across fresh carpets and waxed boards, or rested their dusty bodies on the drawing-room couches.
"How changed it all is!" thinks Addie. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm myself at all, if I haven't been changed with the carpets and curtains."
With a sort of rueful satisfaction, of struggling content, she looks at herself, at the elegant young person in rustlingbrochéwhich the swivel pier-glasses so importunately reflect whenever she crosses her luxurious bedroom. Can she be the same light-hearted girl who stood in a ragged cotton dress and patched boots but a short year ago before a cracked fly-stained old mirror?
"In those days," she thinks, with a laugh, "why, the prospect of a new dress would keep me awake for a week! And now!—now that I have as many as I like, now that I could have a ruche of bank-notes at the bottom of each skirt if I wished—I don't seem to care about it or anything else in particular. I suppose it is always the way. They say a confectioner feels as little inclination to eat one of the buns crowding his counter as an apothecary to swallow a box of his pills. It's a pity that possession should bring satiety so soon. I have all I once longed for in plenteous measure, and yet I want something else—something else I once had and did not value in the least. How foolish of me to want it now, just because it's out of my reach! I suppose that's the reason—because it's out of my reach. Oh, why can't I take the good things in my way like Pauline and the others? Pauline! What a wonderful girl she is, and how little I knew her before! I thought she would be a regular whirlwind in this model establishment, would be always kicking over the traces; on the contrary, she has toned down quicker than any of us, though indeed, for the matter of that, we've behaved as a family very creditably on the whole—we, a flock of hungrysheep turned suddenly from a region of bare sun-dried rocks into a rich clover-valley. Yes, we have behaved well; we have not betrayed our jubilation in uncouth gambols or childish caperings, and credit is due to us, I think. I suppose it's the race-horse strain, as Bob calls it, that has supported us under the ordeal—the race horse strain, the Bourbon blood, the Lefroy breeding," she goes on, a little impatiently. "I wish Bob did not talk quite so much about them. I know we come of a good old stock—we're descended from Charlemagne's sister, and all that; but I do think he makes too much of it. Not that Tom minds it a bit, but I fancy sometimes that he laughs at Bob—yes, I feel sure of it—and despises him a little too for his incapacity and what he, I suppose, calls 'bragging.' And yet how handsome Bob is, how noble-looking even! What an air ofgrand monarquethere is about his lightest movement! For all that, I suppose some people would call him 'a conceited young prig.' I wonder would there be any truth in it if they did? Oh, dear, I feel awfully at sea lately about things, everything getting topsy-turvy, and no one to set me straight—no one!"
The master of Nutsgrove intrudes but very little on the lives of his womenfolk. Every morning at nine o'clock, after a hasty preoccupied breakfast, he either drives or rides to Kelvick, scarcely ever returning before the dinner-hour, when he always appears, clothed in broadcloth and courtesy, to lead his sister-in-law in to dinner; after which he generally bears them company for an hour or so in the drawing-room, occasionally taking a hand atbésiqueor go-bang, sometimes standing by the piano like a gentleman at an evening party, turning over music and expressing polite satisfaction at the extremely mild entertainment, both vocal and instrumental, provided by Addie and Pauline; though the former has a sweet little voice enough, but perfectly untrained and husky from want of use. After ten o'clock, when he retires to his study for a couple of hours' reading, they see him no more until the morning.
The hours of his absence between breakfast and dinner are pleasantly filled, the mornings being devoted to study, under the superintendence of an experienced finishing-governess, who keeps Pauline and Lottie hard at work until twelve; after which, three times a week, masters for music and drawing, from whom Mrs. Armstrong also condescends to take lessons, attend from Kelvick.
The afternoons are spent in driving or riding, in returning or receiving calls; for the county people, who had by degrees dropped the neglected children of Colonel Lefroy, are suddenly and unanimously inspired with feelings of civility toward the wife of the wealthy manufacturer, and day after day the trim well-weeded avenue is marked with the track of some county equipageen routefor Nutsgrove, a state of things which affords much satisfaction to Pauline and her elder brother.
"By Jove, Addie," exclaims that young gentleman one Saturday afternoon, while turning over the contents of her card-tray, "you are in the swim, and no mistake—Lady Crawford, Mr. and the Misses Pelham-Browne, General Hawksley, Sir Alfred and Lady Portrann, the Dean of St. Margaret's, and Mrs. Vavasour, the DowagerCountess of Deenmore and—do my eyes deceive me?—no—Admiral and Mrs. Beecher of the Abbey, Greystones. I'll trouble you for a half-glass of sherry, Goggles. Thanks. I feel reasonably convalescent now. Admiral and Mrs. Beecher of the Abbey, Greystones! After that, I feel equal to anything!"
"We weren't at home on the day they called," laughs Pauline. "I was so sorry, for I meant to have faced them gallantly."
"Well, Addie, well," exclaims Robert triumphantly, "wasn't I a good prophet? Didn't I tell you how it would be? Didn't I tell you you'd open the gates for him and give him the run of the county—eh? I expect he's precious glad now he didn't let you slip through his fingers, Addie!"
"He doesn't care a straw," she answers contemptuously—"I know he doesn't. He wouldn't care if he had the run of twenty counties unless he liked the people personally—unless they were clever, or amusing, or took an interest in his affairs."
"Stuff, Addie, stuff; you don't know what you are talking about. Armstrong is just as pleased as Punch that the neighbors are looking you up. I saw it in his face at once. Why else did he give up three afternoons in the last fortnight to return those calls with Pauline and you, I should like to know?"
"He did that because it would not have been the thing for me, a bride, to return the first time without my—my husband; it would have been bad form, but it bored him awfully—I saw it did," she persists; "and he did not care for the people either. He was awfully disgusted with Lady Crawford—at the way she talked and the questions she asked me. He said afterward that he would not allow his wife to be patronized by such a meddlesome ill-bred woman as that."
Robert flushes angrily.
"That's because he does not understand. People of his class are always hunting up affronts, imagining they're being snubbed and patronized, when nothing of the kind is intended. I am perfectly certain that Lady Crawford meant only to act kindly in offering advice to you, a young girl unaccustomed to the etiquette of matronhood, without a mother to put you in the way of doing things."
"No," declares Addie, "she meant nothing of the kind. The way she looked at me through her gold-rimmed glasses, turned me round, commented on my dress, my appearance, my appointments altogether, and then informed me calmly that she thought I should do, was, to say the least of it, extremely impertinent and underbred; and I quite agree with my husband in the matter."
Robert and Pauline exchange a rapid glance: there is a storm-signal in the latter's eyes. So Robert wisely lets the matter drop, and busies himself with the card-basket.
"By the bye, Addie," he resumes, half an hour later, when the "breeze" has passed, "about this contemplated return of your husband to Parliament at the next election—I hope you will use your influence to make him fall in with the views of the electors; they are most anxious he should stand—"
"My husband returned for Parliament!" she interrupts quickly. "I—I did not know, have not heard anything about it. They want him to stand for Kelvick?"
"Yes, when old Hubbard retires at the end of the next session; he's been past his work for years. Fancy Armstrong not telling you anything about it! Why, every one is—"
"He does not talk much of his business affairs at home. I suppose he does not think they would interest me," she says hastily.
"Well, but this is not business exactly; and let me tell you, Addie, it's a subject in which you ought to take an interest. The position of the wife of a member of Parliament is always one to command respect, though it is a great pity Armstrong should go to the wrong shop for his politics. However, I suppose, having risen from the ranks, he could scarcely at the eleventh hour go over to Toryism—"
"Because he married a Lefroy? Well, scarcely! And I'd rather not ask him to do so, if that is what you mean, Robert," says Addie, with a slight sneer, which she finds it difficult at times to repress when discussing her husband with Robert. Then, after a pause—"Fancy his going into Parliament! I never thought he had any inclination for a political career."
"Oh, but, my dear," says Robert, with lofty indulgence, "you must not judge Armstrong by what you see of him here! He's not the sort of man to shine in society, not a carpet-ornament by any means; but he's just the man to prose away in the House by the hour anent artisans' rights and working-men's wrongs, and the rest of it! Why, he's one of the tallest talkers at mechanics' institute meeting, unionsoirées, corporate gatherings in Kelvick! You should just hear him in the chair! Why, he has a flow of steady municipal oratory that would simply surprise you! I must smuggle you into the gallery some evening, Addie, and you can hear your lord spout."
"And me too, Bob," pleads Lottie, who is listening most attentively. "I should like to hear Tom in the chair too; I'm sure he has very little to say in any of our chairs. Polly and I have to do all the talk of an evening; he's generally as quiet as a mouse. And, as for toning him down, polishing him up—you remember, Bob, what you said we should have to do when he married Addie? Why, I really don't see there's any need for it all! Tom is quite as polite and as well behaved as any one else who comes here."
"Lottie, Lottie, what are you talking about?" breaks in Bob, his face reddening unpleasantly. "I never said anything of the kind!"
"But Bob, you did—you know you did—and so did Polly, too; but you forget. You said we should have to teach him how to enter a room, to sit at table, eat his dinner, and behave like a gentleman. You said he'd put his knife in his mouth instead of his fork, drink his soup like an alderman, sop up his gravy with bread, and so on. And he does nothing of the kind; he just eats his dinner like you, or me, or any one. I watched him carefully from the very first night. Polly, Polly, you're kicking my shins! Oh, oh! What's the matter? What have I—"
"The matter!" cried Polly, in a low angry voice. "The matter is that I strongly suspect you'll end the year at Miss Swishtale's; and I sincerely hope it may be so."
"Oh, Polly, I'm so sorry!" whines Lottie, looking at her eldestsister walking away quickly with very bright cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes as of unshed tears. "But I never can remember she's married to him; they're not a bit like husband and wife—you know they're not—and she's always Addie Lefroy to me."
"Then let me once more impress on you the fact that she's not Addie Lefroy, and never will be again," says Pauline, with impressive impatience. "And you, Bob, ought to be more guarded in what you say, and not criticise her husband as freely as you do. I can see she does not like it."
Addie walks slowly down the hall, seeing her husband—the door of his study standing ajar—writing at his desk. She pauses for a moment, moves on hesitatingly, and then hurries forward and knocks briskly.
"It is you! Pray come in, Addie," he said politely, rising to meet her. "Won't you sit down?"
"No, I won't detain you; I see you are busy. I—I only came to tell you that Bob has just informed me that you have some idea of standing for Kelvick at the next election, and he—he seemed to think it strange I had heard nothing about it from you."
"But I have no denned idea of standing for Kelvick, and the election is many months off yet. I should certainly have spoken to you on the matter, had I begun to think seriously of it myself. It is not too late now. What are your views? Are you as anxious as your brother Robert that I should go in for senatorial honors?" Then, with a quick cold smile, seeing she does not answer—"Would you care for the mystic initials 'W. M. P.' after your name, my dear?"
"'W. M .P.'! What do they stand for?"
"'Wife of member of Parliament.' Haven't you read 'Our Mutual Friend'? No? Then you ought to do so; it's a capital book."
"If you went into Parliament," she says slowly, "you would have to spend a couple of months in town, would you not—would have to tear yourself away from the bosom of your family for nearly a quarter of a year at a time? That would be a—a trial you ought to consider, I think."
"I will consider all the drawbacks and advantages of the position carefully, before I commit myself, you may be sure. I will not—"
"Do anything in a hurry again," she puts in quickly, her eyes smoldering. "You are right. It would be a mistake."
He takes not the slightest notice of the taunt; she, looking defiantly, wistfully into his strong swarthy face, lit up with that smile of genial indifference it always wears when by rare chance they find themselves alone together, acknowledges to herself with a pang that she is bruising herself in vain, that no movement of her restless, petulant little hand will move him from the position he has taken, that no frown, no laugh, no tear, no sigh, will soften the granite of his face or nature, or bring his life nearer to hers again.
"What is your programme for the afternoon?" he asks, in a tone of polite interest. "It is a pity not to avail yourselves of this pleasant weather, with bleak November within a week of our heels."
"We were thinking of riding over to Beeton Hall—Robert, Polly,and I—to see Mrs. Morgan's apiary, I think she called it; it ought to be amusing. I know I always enjoyed the monkey-house at the Zoo better than anything else."
Armstrong's shield is lowered for a minute; he looks up into his wife's childish face with a smile that brings back to her the short warm fortnight by the sea, and makes her mutter to herself:
"How almost nice-looking he would be if he always smiled in that way! I suppose I must have said something startlingly idiotic to make him look natural all of a moment like that."
"'Apiary'?" he repeats. "Did you expect to see monkeys in Mrs. Morgan's apiary, Addie?"
"Apes?" she answers stoutly. "Of course we did—Polly, Robert, all of us. We expected to see monkeys, apes, chimpanzees, gorillas even; she said it was a splendid one. What are we to see, Tom?"
"Bees, Addie."
"Bees," she echoes blankly—"only bees! I do call that a 'sell,' and no mistake! Going to ride nine miles to see a lot of stupid old bees! Oh, won't the others be just mad! And Polly and I after stuffing our saddles with sugar and nuts and eau-de-Cologne—oh, dear!"
"I sympathize with you, my dear; and I think Robert might have remembered enough of his Latin to know thatapismeans 'bee.'"
"Such a long uninteresting ride too along the quarry road!" she grumbles. "I—I suppose you wouldn't be tempted to join our festive party, would you?"
"Unfortunately I have to return to Kelvick. I'm engaged to dine with Challice the banker."
"At his club?"
"No; at his private residence."
"Oh, I see! I suppose you'll have a very pleasant evening?"
"I hope so. By the bye, I think I'll remain at the factory all night. They generally keep it up rather late at the bank-house. Challice is an indefatigable whist-player."
"Miss Challice, is she a good player?"
"Very fair; she plays a steady hand."
"I—I suppose now she'd know that an apiary wasn't an ape-house?"
"I never had occasion to sound her knowledge in the matter; but I should say she would."
Addie draws a quick resentful breath, leans over her husband as he is placidly stamping his letters, and whispers in his ear:
"What a pity you didn't marry her, Tom, instead of me!"
With this parting shot she flies from the room.