Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/995

Rh plain dress with Judge Howard, while opposite her and next to Doane sat Daisy Bourne, pink and dimpling in a white gown that Edith Louden called "unmistakable." This cast a shadow, but after dinner there came light, for Harry sought her out at once in the drawing-room, and holding her hand, looked into her eyes and whispered: "Am I doing all right, dear? Do you think they like me? I want you to be as proud of me as I am of you!"

After five days of rain, the sixth morning was dazzling. Joanna, awake in the early sunshine, felt a sense of physical relief strong enough to dull somewhat the pain at her heart, that rose insistent with each dawn. In the silence of the hour she allowed her mind to review its impressions. The week had all gone wrong: every one must have seen that, though, of course, not as clearly as it had come to her. They were not the kind of people who felt, and she was, and for them these last days made just an episode to be followed by a dozen of the same sort, while for her they might hold the turning-point of her life.

Of course there were definite reasons why things had not gone well. She hugged her sense of justice to her. She would be fair-minded. The sullen storm, first of all; Louisa's bad cold that had kept her in her room much of the time; and the business in town that had taken the men up in the morning and brought them back late,—it was all natural enough, and it had given the others much to do. Tom's only idea of the duty of host was to sit in a corner and laugh at Edith Louden's jokes, and Harry had had to spend much of his time at the bridge-table. He was undeniably fond of cards, though, and she had watched him narrowly; she never joined, for she hated games, and that means that you can't play them. His eager attention and wrinkled forehead at first amused and then annoyed her.

It had annoyed her, too, to see how well Daisy Bourne played. When she was Harry's partner they were sure to win, for their understanding of one another's game was remarkable—grown it must have been, the older woman told herself, from some subtle and mutual mental comprehension. She would stand it as long as she could, and then turn to a window that looked to the sea. The wind was bending a slender ash-tree almost to the ground; its leaves lay broken and scattered below. A larger wave dashed its spray above the bank; its last drops, borne houseward, wet the pane, and the window trembled in its casing. Underneath her discomfort lay a pricking sense of self-pity that she had really striven hard to account for by physical reasons. "You are getting morbid," her mind asserted. "You stay indoors too much; go out into the wind and rain and get your balance. You must not be jealous; there is no reason. It is weak of you—weak and wrong." But through her reasoning rang the persistent, penetrating note of her heart, that would not be stilled:

"You are forty and that girl is twenty-two; twenty-two and forty! It is not fair!"

Sometimes a walk down the avenue would refresh her, and when Harry went with her, and held her cloak about her as he pushed her up the hill with strong arm, her smile freed itself and her laugh answered his, and she was almost happy.

Only once Daisy had spoiled it by coming too, and had pitched a golf-ball to him straight and hard—she herself never could direct a ball,—and Harry's voice had a tone of pleased surprise as he caught it.

"Why, you can throw!" cried he.

Harry seemed to have developed a strange liking for the unusual. There had been no talk such as Hepner was fond of starting, or such as gave her own drawing-room its character. Pictures hadn't been spoken of in days—nor books nor ideas. There was only a running mention of people and golf and boats, and she didn't know a brassey from a centre-board! How glad she was that it was almost over. Yes; the visit had been a failure, but to-morrow was the last day. She seized on the thought of the summer that should be all hers; that should make her forget this torturing week,—but across her confidence in the future lay the dull cloud of a present insecurity; a half-realization that what she feared had struck deep at the roots of what she knew; a something that seemed to foreshadow a readjustment of her own happiness. Struggle as she would, she could not get beyond it.