Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/308

276 Tom ought to have married a clever woman;" and Ella mentally determined to read more, in case Tom took to talking to her; but it is hard to work with such a remote end in view.

When Tom came he was very quiet, and Ella was disappointed.

"How very tired you look," he said, fixing his eyes on Lucy's face, as he gave her some tea.

"I am, very," said Lucy.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," broke in Ella, "you never told me. Why ever didn't you tell me? And here I've been chattering and chattering, and you ought to have been on the sofa, quite quiet, with your feet up. Do put them up, now. Tom won't mind, will you, Tom?"

Ella was in such a charming little fuss that Tom and Lucy exchanged a smile.

"Fancy not telling me! " said Ella.

They smiled again. "To tell Ella you are tired," the smile said, "is just putting a match to a dear little feminine bomb." Lucy pacified Ella, then she looked at Tom again, and the smile died out of her face. She understood now Ella's constant complaint that he never talked. Talk! How could he? And she? Why had she spent so much time with Ella, week after week?

Only because she was dead tired and only half alive, that was all; but Tom was, and had to be, with her always.

A leaden sky, a leaden river. Lucy stopped and looked over the bridge. In the river there was a just perceptible movement, in the sky a suppression that promised a storm, and, for who could look so far ahead, freshness after it.

Lucy thought of Katharine s cheerful companionship and the cup of cocoa awaiting her, and still she lingered.

"Low spirits are mostly indigestion," Katharine had said;

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