The Argonauts of North Liberty | Page 8

it, and the hand that
supported her low white forehead over which her full hair was simply
parted, like a brown curtain, was slim and gentle-womanly. In spite of
her plain lustreless silk dress, in spite of the formal frame of sombre
heavy horsehair and mahogany furniture that seemed to set her off, she
diffused an atmosphere of cleanly grace and prim refinement through
the apartment. The priestess of this ascetic temple, the femininity of her
closely covered arms, her pink ears, and a little serviceable morocco
house-shoe that was visible lower down, resting on the carved lion's
paw that upheld the centre-table, appeared to be only the more accented.
And the precisely rounded but softly heaving bosom, that was pressed
upon the edges of the open book of sermons before her, seemed to
assert itself triumphantly over the rigors of the volume.

At least so her husband and lover thought, as he moved tenderly
towards her. She met his first kiss on her forehead; the second, a
supererogatory one, based on some supposed inefficiency in the first,
fell upon a shining band of her hair, beside her neck. She reached up
her slim hands, caught his wrists firmly, and, slightly putting him aside,
said:
"There, Edward?"
"I drove out from Warensboro, so as to get here to-night, as I have to
return to the city on Tuesday. I thought it would give me a little more
time with you, Joan," he said, looking around him, and, at last,
hesitatingly drawing an apparently reluctant chair from its formal
position at the window. The remembrance that he had ever dared to
occupy the same chair with her, now seemed hardly possible of
credence.
"If it was a question of your travelling on the Lord's Day, Edward, I
would rather you should have waited until to-morrow," she said, with
slow precision.
"But--I--I thought I'd get here in time for the meeting," he said, weakly.
"And instead, you have driven through the town, I suppose, where
everybody will see you and talk about it. But," she added, raising her
dark eyes suddenly to his, "where else have you been? The train gets
into Warensboro at six, and it's only half an hour's drive from there.
What have you been doing, Edward?"
It was scarcely a felicitous moment for the introduction of Demorest's
name, and he would have avoided it. But he reflected that he had been
seen, and he was naturally truthful. "I met Dick Demorest near the
church, and as he had something to tell me, we drove down the
turnpike a little way--so as to be out of the town, you know,
Joan--and--and--"
He stopped. Her face had taken upon itself that appalling and
exasperating calmness of very good people who never get angry, but

drive others to frenzy by the simple occlusion of an adamantine veil
between their own feelings and their opponents'. "I'll tell you all about
it after I've put up the horse," he said hurriedly, glad to escape until the
veil was lifted again. "I suppose the hired man is out."
"I should hope he was in church, Edward, but I trust YOU won't delay
taking care of that poor dumb brute who has been obliged to minister to
your and Mr. Demorest's Sabbath pleasures."
Blandford did not wait for a further suggestion. When the door had
closed behind him, Mrs. Blandford went to the mantel-shelf, where a
grimly allegorical clock cut down the hours and minutes of men with a
scythe, and consulted it with a slight knitting of her pretty eyebrows.
Then she fell into a vague abstraction, standing before the open book
on the centre-table. Then she closed it with a snap, and methodically
putting it exactly in the middle of the top of a black cabinet in the
corner, lifted the shaded lamp in her hand and passed slowly with it up
the stairs to her bedroom, where her light steps were heard moving to
and fro. In a few moments she reappeared, stopping for a moment in
the hall with the lighted lamp as if to watch and listen for her husband's
return. Seen in that favorable light, her cheeks had caught a delicate
color, and her dark eyes shone softly. Putting the lamp down in exactly
the same place as before, she returned to the cabinet for the book,
brought it again to the table, opened it at the page where she had placed
her perforated cardboard book-marker, sat down beside it, and with her
hands in her lap and her eyes on the page began abstractedly to tear a
small piece of paper into tiny fragments. When she had reduced it to
the smallest shreds, she scraped the pieces out of her silk lap and again
collected them in the pink hollow