Dr. Lavendar looked at the bowed head; but he offered no comfort.
When she said brokenly, "No; I can't have him. I can't have him," he
assented; and there was silence again. It was broken by a small,
cheerful voice: "Mary says supper's ready. There's milk toast, an'--"
Dr. Lavendar went as quickly as he could to the door; when he opened
it he stood between the little boy and Helena. "Tell Mary not to wait
for me; but ask her to give you your supper."
"An' Mary says that in Ireland they call clover 'shamrocks'; an'--"
Dr. Lavendar gently closed the door. When he went back to his seat on
the other side of the table, she said faintly, "That was--?"
"Yes," said Dr. Lavendar.
"Oh," she whispered. "I knew I would have to give him up. I knew I had
no right to him."
"No; you had no right to him."
"But I loved him so! Oh, I thought, maybe, I would be--like other
people, if I had him."
After a while, with long pauses between the sentences, she began to
tell him. ...
"I never thought about goodness; or badness either. Only about Lloyd,
and happiness. I thought I had a right to happiness. But I was angry
at all the complacent married people; they were so satisfied with
themselves! And yet all the time I wished Frederick would die so that
I could be married. Oh, the time was so long!" She threw her arms up
with a gesture of shuddering weariness; then clasped her hands between
her knees, and staring at the floor, began to speak. Her words poured
out, incoherent, contradictory, full of bewilderment and pain. "Yes; I
wasn't very happy, except just at first. After a while I got so tired
of Lloyd's selfishness. Oh--he was so selfish! I used to look at him
sometimes, and almost hate him. He always took the most comfortable
chair, and he cared so much about things to eat. And he got fat. And
he didn't mind Frederick's living. I could see that. And I prayed that
Frederick would die.--I suppose you think it was wicked to pray that?"
"Go on."
"It was only because I loved Lloyd so much. But he didn't die. And I
began not to be happy. And then I thought Lloyd didn't want to talk to
me about Alice. Alice is his daughter. It was three years ago I first
noticed that. But I wasn't really sure until this summer. He didn't
even like to show me her picture. That nearly killed me, Dr. Lavendar.
And once, just lately, he told me her 'greatest charm was her
innocence.' Oh, it was cruel in him to say that! How could he be so
cruel!" she looked at him for sympathy; but he was silent. "But
underneath, somehow, I understood; and that made me angry,--to
understand. It was this summer that I began to be angry. And then I
got so jealous: not of Alice, exactly; but of what she stood for. It
was a kind of fright, because I couldn't go back and begin again. Do
you know what I mean?"