Page:Stanwood Pier--The ancient grudge.djvu/358

Rh He knew that her gratitude for what Floyd had done years before had been enshrined in her heart as a sacred sentiment and that a word in Floyd's disparagement was not to be easily drawn from her lips. That a woman should be reluctant to admit a flaw in the character of one to whom she owed all and to whom she had been steadfast in her loyalty, was fitting—especially when the man was he whose name she had given to her own little son. The delicacy of such reluctance was a feminine quality that Stewart prized. But he waited for the time when the devotion of the wife to the husband should break down this loyalty of the woman to the friend and permit the utterance of a word in censure—though it were only the lightest; this ultimately must be required to show that she held the friend in error and not the husband; this Stewart required as a definite demonstration that her devotion to him transcended the most sacred of her other sentiments. But she never spoke the word for which he watched and waited.

"Stewart, dear, think how much greater satisfaction it will be to you to win the award in competition," she said to him one day when he had been airing his grievance in the hope that she would respond. "For you will win it, I know—when you feel so sure of your plans."

"No thanks to Floyd if I win," muttered Stewart cheerlessly.

"Ah, but that's what you want, is n't it?" said Lydia, laying a light hand upon his. "You've been talking, have n't you, of the unpleasantness of being under obligations—feeling you're at a disadvantage because of them—and of course if Floyd had given you this commission right off, there would have been one more thank you to say—a thing which you seem to hate, in spite of your generally good manners. But when you win the competition you won't have obligations to anybody."

"Yes—when I win the competition!" Stewart said sarcastically. "Here I've got to stay in town all the rest