"Yes. Wait a moment, and I'll get it."
"No--tell me where it is, and I'll go."
"It's only a white chiffon scarf," she said. "I think you'll find it hanging from the back of that low rocker, near the dressing-table."
He went up-stairs, silently and swiftly, and paused, for a moment, at Edith's door. It seemed strange to have her permission to turn the knob and go in. He hesitated upon the threshold, then entered the sweet darkness which, to him, would have meant Edith, had it been blown to him across the wastes of Sahara.
How still it was! Only the cheery piping of a cricket broke the exquisite peace of the room; only a patch of moonlight, upon the polished floor, illumined the scented dusk. He struck a match, and lighted one of the candles upon the dressing-table.
The place was eloquent of her, as though she had just gone out. The carved ivory toilet articles--he could have guessed that she would not have silver ones,--the crystal puff box, with a gold top ornamented only by a monogram; no, it was not a monogram either, but interlaced initials trailing diagonally across it; the mirror, a carelessly crumpled handkerchief, and a gold thimble--he picked up each article with a delightful sense of intimacy.
A Man's Face
Face down upon the dressing-table was a photograph, framed in dull green leather. That, too, he took up without stopping to question the propriety of it. A man's face smiled back at him, a young, happy face, full of comradeship and the joy of life for its own sake.
This, then, was her husband! Alden's heart grew hot with resentment at the man who had made Edith miserable. He had put those sad lines under her eyes, that showed so plainly sometimes when she was tired, made her sweet mouth droop at the corners, and filled her whole personality with the wistfulness that struck at his heart, like the wistfulness of a little child.
This man, with the jovial countenance, and doubtless genial ways, had the right to stand at her dressing-table, if he chose, and speculate upon the various uses of all the daintiness that was spread before him. He had the right and cared nothing for it, while the man who did care, stood there shamefaced, all at once feeling himself an intruder in a sacred place.
He put the photograph back, face down, as it had been, took the scarf, put out the light, and went back down-stairs. He stopped for a moment in the hall to wonder what this was that assailed him so strangely, this passionate bitterness against the other man, this longing to shelter Edith from whatever might make her unhappy.