Page:Ethan Frome (Scribners 1922).djvu/132

114 You're a poor man's wife, Zeena; but I'll do the best I can for you."

For a while she sat motionless, as if reflecting, her arms stretched along the arms of her chair, her eyes fixed on vacancy. "Oh, I guess we'll make out," she said mildly.

The change in her tone reassured him. "Of course we will ! There's a whole lot more I can do for you, and Mattie"

Zeena, while he spoke, seemed to be follow- ing out some elaborate mental calculation. She emerged from it to say: "There'll be Mattie's board less, anyhow"

Ethan, supposing the discussion to be over, had turned to go down to supper. He stopped short, not grasping what he heard. "Mattie's board less—?" he began.

Zeena laughed. It was an odd unfamiliar sound —he did not remember ever having heard her laugh before. "You didn't suppose I was going to keep two girls, did you? No wonder you were scared at the expense!"

He still had but a confused sense of what she was saying. From the beginning of the discus- sion he had instinctively avoided the mention of