That night she proposed to Laurence that they should adopt one of Barclay's children. Laurence did not like the idea at all; he looked discomfited, and so did the Judge. Both felt it would be the intrusion of a stranger into the domestic circle. Laurence had a good reason to give for his objection, and a sincere one—it would be too much for Mary, she had her hands full now, with the house and two small children. Mary said she could manage it, and that it was only right for her to do her part in helping the unfortunates. She looked so calmly resolved as she spoke that Laurence and the Judge exchanged alarmed glances. They did not oppose her directly, but devised a stratagem. Laurence pointed out to Mary next morning that after all they were living in the Judge's house, and the Judge didn't want a strange child there. So they couldn't very well adopt the child, but he, Laurence, would be responsible for its maintenance and care somewhere else.
"Very well," said Mary austerely. "But I think the Judge is very self-indulgent."
"So am I, then," confessed Laurence. "I don't want it either. But honestly, both of us think about you. I don't want you to undertake it, dearest—it's too much."
"If other people, not so well off as we are, can do it, I should think we could."
"It's a question of what we can do best. I'll gladlygive the money, and I'm doing all I can for Barclay too, and so is the Judge."
"I know—forhim. You're interested in him, but I think you'd do much better to help the children."
"Well, Iwillhelp them, you'll see."
Laurence kept his word, and in fact charged himself with the future, as it turned out, of all three children. But Mary was for the moment dissatisfied. She wished to put into instant practice her theories of duty, and utterly scorned theory without practice.
Looking in that afternoon, as she had said she would, to see if Hilary had kept his promise and to report about the children, she mentioned the attitude of her husband and the Judge as explaining why she could not carry out her plan.
"I think men are very inconsistent," she said caustically. "They like to talk about what they'll do for other people, but when it really comes todoingit—"
"A man's reach should exceed his grasp," quoted Hilary. "We alwaysseemuch more than we can do."
"I think it would be better, then, to see less and do more," remarked Mary.
Hilary looked very weak and pale. His fever was down, but he had kept his bed, unwillingly. Mary had brought him a pot of jelly and a few daffodils from her garden. He held the flowers in his hand, and looked with brooding tender pleasure at their brilliant colour. Mary asked questions about some church-business she was to do for him, and then, in the short remaining time of her visit, they talked about sin.
The conversation of the day before had remained in her mind and puzzled her. She questioned him sharply:
"What did you mean by saying that when you understood the sinner you couldn't condemn sin? Do you really feel that?"
"I often feel it," said Hilary in a low voice.
"Then it would be better for younotto understand the sinner. You said so yourself, you said you wished you didn't."
"Well, I can't help it," Hilary smiled wanly. "Because, you see, I'm a sinner myself."
"Of course you're not. You only like to think you are."
"What is sin? You said it's weakness. Do you think I'm not weak, sometimes?"
"No, I don't think you are. You don'tactweakly, and that's the only thing that counts."
"Is it? Don't you think there are sinful thoughts and feelings?"
"Of course. But if we fight against them—"
"Well, don't you think that a man who carries a sinful feeling around with him, even if he doesn't act on it, knows what a sinner is—and do you think he can be very hard on another man who just happens to act?"
Mary cast an angry glance at the pale face turned toward her. There was a look about Hilary's mouth, as though he were repressing a smile. He had a look of mischief, not merry either, but as though deliberately trying to puzzle and disturb her—and she had seen this in him before.
She arose from her chair, and gathered her shawl about her, lifting her chin, stately in her displeasure. Her grey eyes looked down with cold reproof.
"I think instead of talking that way, you'd much better go to sleep."
"Well, good-bye, then," said Hilary.
He turned his head away sharply. His fingers closed tightly on the yellow daffodils. Mary suddenly saw lying there before her, not a man, but a forlorn sick child. For the first time she knew the impulse to comfort this unhappiness, an impulse of tenderness. It frightened her, and she went out quickly, without a word.
Returning home, she found trouble and confusion. The Judge had been taken ill and Laurence had brought him home. Mrs. Lowell was there in the room, a messenger had been sent to try to find the doctor. The Judge was stretched out on his bed, unconscious, his face deeply flushed. Laurence, with Mrs. Lowell's aid, was trying to get some of his clothes off.
"He's had a stroke—just toppled over at his desk—I wish you'd been at home, Mary," said Laurence with sharp reproach. "I don't know what on earth to do for him—"
Silently Mary gave what help she could. They got his coat and boots off, loosened his shirt-collar, put a cold compress on his head. He was breathing heavily and the purple flush deepened, especially on the left side of his face. In her alarm, Mary still remembered the children and that it was the baby's nursing-time, and as there seemed nothing more to do, she left the room. Laurence followed her out.
"You remember he's complained of dizziness several times lately—I tried to have him see your father but hewouldn't, said he thought perhaps he'd been eating or smoking too much. At his age, you know, it's pretty serious—"
"He didn't look well this morning," began Mary, going into the dining-room, where the cook was looking after the children.
"Well, I should think you might have stayed at home, then—where were you?" asked Laurence irritably.
"Please put James in his pen," said Mary, taking the baby. "Hilda, you'd better see that there's plenty of hot water—the doctor may want it."
She carried the baby upstairs and sat down in a low chair in their room to nurse it. When Laurence came in the door, she said directly:
"I went to see Mr. Robertson—he's ill."
"You went yesterday too, didn't you?... You're very attentive to him."
She looked up at him, opposing to harsh irritation her reproving silence.
"I tell you, I don't care to have you going to see him that way, alone. Do you want to be talked about?"
"Don't disturb me when I'm nursing the baby.... There—isn't that Father?"
The clatter of wheels and a hasty run up the steps in fact announced the doctor's arrival. Laurence went downstairs, with an angry parting glance. The baby cried a little, and Mary gathered it to her breast, composing herself, shutting her eyes, trying to banish all disturbing thoughts, even the thought of the Judge. She believed that any disturbance in her when she was nursing reacted at once on the baby. Indeed now thebaby cried shrilly and at first refused the breast; but after a few moments, quiet succeeded, and Mary sighed, relaxing. It was a deep physical pleasure to her, to nurse her child—more so with this one than with the first. The baby's strong pull at the breast, for he was a robust infant—his hand opening and shutting on her flesh, the warmth of his little body, the relation of complete confidence and satisfaction—it moved and soothed her. She sank into a dreamy contentment, isolated from all that hurry and trouble downstairs.
But when the baby, replete, had gone to sleep, she laid him on the bed, and at once went down. She was very much concerned about the Judge, though her quiet face and motions did not betray her anxiety. She did what could be done, and awaited her father's verdict silently.
"Apoplexy—he'll recover, undoubtedly, but his left side is affected, there may be a slight paralysis," Dr. Lowell told them. "His habits have been bad—no exercise, too much whiskey and tobacco. And then his age—he must be over seventy. Probably he'll be a good deal of an invalid from now on."
"He won't like that," Laurence said sorrowfully.
"No, he's never taken care of himself, he'll hate it, naturally—but so it is.... It will mean a good deal for you and Mary—the care of him here, and then he won't be able to do any work for some time—perhaps never again, to any extent."
Laurence and Mary looked at one another gravely and sadly—both felt what this would mean to the Judge. When they were alone, Laurence went and took her into his arms.
"I'm sorry I was cross to you," he said softly. "I didn't mean to be rough."
Mary kissed his cheek.
"I know—of course you were terribly worried," was her forgiving response.
"This will be very hard for you, Mary, the Judge being ill—we must get some one to help."
"Well—we'll see.... You'll have a lot of extra work too, Laurence, and you're working so hard now—"
"Oh, I think I can manage," he said absently. "But the thing right now is to get somebody here to help you—he'll have to be watched at night now, and—I tell you, there's Nora. You remember the girl you saw at the office the other day, Nora Skehan, you know I told you I used to know her as a child. She's out of work again, and I'm sure she'd be glad to come. You might try her."
"Well, I'll see," said Mary again.
Laurence held her and looked at her appealingly.
"Mary—I can't bear to have anything wrong with you and me.... Other things go wrong—there's a lot of trouble and worry—but I can't stand it to feel angry at you, or have you angry with me—"
"I don't think I'm ever angry with you," murmured Mary reflectively.
"Well, worse ... you look at me sometimes as if you didn't like me! When you're displeased—it's worse than being angry. I'd rather you'd flame out, the way I do, and get it over with—"
"I'm not like you." She smiled gravely.
"I wish you felt as I do—that you'd do anything rather than have trouble between us—"
"Trouble? What trouble?"
She drew away from him, an instinctive shrinking that hurt him.
"I mean, you don't seem to care that certain things disturb me!" he burst out. "You're so terribly reserved, you keep things to yourself—you do things I don't like, and you don'tcarethat I don't like them—"
"I don't do anything wrong," said Mary proudly.
"You're so sure everything you do is right! No matter how it affectsme!"
"You do thingsIdon't like—Barclay, for instance."
"That was a matter—I felt Ihadto do it—I felt it was right—"
"Well, you must allow me to judge what is right forme. I shall never do what I think wrong."
"What you think! You don't think it wrong then to disturb me by your actions, not to give me your confidence—"
"Confidence?" said Mary haughtily. "I will tell you anything you want to know. I haven't anything to conceal. But you simply don't understand my feelings, certain things I care about that you don't care about—"
"That's it! You take it for granted I can't understand.... I don't want you to have friendships apart from me!"
Mary stood still, looking down, her eyes hidden by the long drooping lids that gave her face a look of passionless calm, inflexible, immovable.
"Do you hear?" cried Laurence.
He knew, even while he could not master his agitation, that it put him in the wrong, that it gave her the advantage. But he could not bear opposition from her. To know that they were not completely united, completely one in feeling, was a torment to him.
"Don't shout," she said. "I think this is a queer time for you to talk like this, Laurence—it seems to me you ought to be thinking about the Judge."
"Ought!" he muttered. "Did you hear what I said?"
"Yes, I heard, Laurence. But—" She looked full at him now, her clear grey eyes very bright. "But I will not let you interfere with what I think right to do."
"You will not?... Don't you know that I'm master here, that you're bound to do as I say?"
Again the long lids veiled her eyes, and she stood without replying. And Laurence's heart was burning. This harsh assertion of authority had been wrong, it was not what he meant. He hated force. What good would anything forced from Mary do to him? What he longed for was a tender understanding—but if she would not understand, would not be tender, what could he do but rage?
At this point they were interrupted. Mrs. Lowell called to them from the sickroom, and Mary hurried to take charge there, without a word or look for her husband. Resentment smouldered in her mind, a feeling that Laurence was wrong, and, in addition, undignified. All the rest of the afternoon, busy as she was, and grieved too as she watched the Judge's stricken figure—all this time a turmoil of feeling about Laurence was going on below the surface of her mind. Never had she been so disturbed. This was the first really serious clash in the two years of their life together.