The Happiest Time of Their Lives Part 37

Then he opened the door of his study, went to the chair he had risen from, and took up the paper at the paragraph at which he had dropped it.

Adelaide's eyes followed him like search-lights.

"May I ask," she said with her edged voice, "if you have been disposing of my child's future in there without consulting me?"

If their places had been reversed, Adelaide would have raised her eyebrows and repeated, "Your child's future?" but Farron was more direct.

"I have been engaging Wayne as a secretary," he said, and, turning to the financial page, glanced down the quotations.

"Then you must dismiss him again."

"He will be a useful man to me," said Farron, as if she had not spoken.

"I have needed some one whom I could depend on--"

"Vincent, it is absurd for you to pretend you don't know he wanted to marry Mathilde."

He did not raise his eyes.

"Yes," he said; "I remember you and I had some talk about it before my operation."

"Since then circ.u.mstances have arisen of which you know nothing--things I did not tell you."

"Do you think that was wise?"

With a sense that a rapid and resistless current was carrying them both to destruction she saw for the first time that he was as angry as she.

"I do not like your tone," she said.

"What's the matter with it?"

"It isn't polite; it isn't friendly."

"Why should it be?"

"Why? What a question! Love--"

"I doubt if it is any longer a question of love between you and me."

These words, which so exactly embodied her own idea, came to her as a shock, a brutal blow from him.

"Vincent!" she cried protestingly.

"I don't know what it is that has your attention now, what private anxieties that I am not privileged to share--"

"You have been ill."

"But not imbecile. Do you suppose I've missed one tone of your voice, or haven't understood what has been going on in your mind? Have you lived with me five years and think me a forgiving man--"

"May I ask what you have to forgive?"

"Do you suppose a pat to my pillow or an occasional kind word takes the place to me of what our relation used to be?"

"You speak as if our relation was over."

"Have you been imagining I was going to come whining to you for a return of your love and respect? What nonsense! Love makes love, and indifference makes indifference."

"You expect me to say I am indifferent to you?"

"I care very little what you say. I judge your conduct."

She had an unerring instinct for what would wound him. If she had answered with conviction, "Yes, I am indifferent to you," there would have been enough temper and exaggeration in it for him to discount the whole statement. But to say, "No, I still love you, Vincent," in a tone that conceded the very utmost that she could,--namely, that she still loved him for the old, rather pitiful a.s.sociation,--that would be to inflict the most painful wound possible. And so that was what she said.

She was prepared to have him take it up and cry: "You still love me? Do you mean as you love your Aunt Alberta?" and she, still trying to be just, would answer: "Oh, more than Aunt Alberta. Only, of course--"

The trouble was he did not make the right answer. When she said, "No, I still love you, Vincent," he answered:

"I cannot say the same."

It was one of those replies that change the face of the world. It drove every other idea out of her head. She stared at him for an instant.

"n.o.body," she answered, "need tell me such a thing as that twice." It was a fine phrase to cover a retreat; she left him and went to her own room. It no more occurred to her to ask whether he meant what he said than if she had been struck in the head she would have inquired if the blow was real.

She did not come down to lunch. Vincent and Mathilde ate alone. Mathilde, as she told Pete, had begun to understand her stepfather, but she had not progressed so far as to see in his silence anything but an unapproachable sternness. It never crossed her mind that this middle-aged man, who seemed to control his life so completely, was suffering far more than she, and she was suffering a good deal.

Pete had promised to come that morning, and she hadn't seen him yet. She supposed he had come, and that, though she had been on the lookout for him, she had missed him. She felt as if they were never going to see each other again. When she found she was to be alone at luncheon with Farron, she thought of appealing to him, but was restrained by two considerations. She was a kind person, and her mother had repeatedly impressed upon her how badly at present Mr. Farron supported any anxiety.

More important than this, however, was her belief that he would never work at cross-purposes with his wife. What were she and Pete to do? she thought. Mrs. Wayne would not take her in, her mother would not let Pete come to the house, and they had no money.

Both cups of soup left the table almost untasted.

"I'm sorry Mama has one of her headaches," said Mathilde.

"Yes," said Farron. "You'd better take some of that chicken, Mathilde.

It's very good."

She did not notice that the piece he had taken on his own plate was untouched.

"I'm not hungry," she answered.

"Anything wrong?"

She could not lie, and so she looked at him and smiled and answered:

"Nothing, as Mama would say, to trouble an invalid with."

She did not have a great success. In fact, his brows showed a slight disposition to contract, and after a moment of silence he said:

"Does your mother say that?"

"She's always trying to protect you nowadays, Mr. Farron."