The Happiest Time of Their Lives | Page 6

by Pringle's opening the door and announcing:
"Mr. Lanley."
Wayne stood up.
"I suppose I must go," he said.
"No, no," she returned a little wildly, and added, as if this were the

reason why she opposed his departure. "This is my grandfather. You
must see him."
Wayne sat down again, in the chair on the other side of the tea-table.

CHAPTER II
Mathilde had been wrong in telling Wayne that her mother had gone
upstairs in obedience to an impulse of kindness. She had gone to quiet a
small, gnawing anxiety that had been with her all the day, a haunting,
elusive, persistent impression that something was wrong between her
and her husband.
All the day, as she had gone about from one thing to another, her mind
had been diligently seeking in some event of the outside world an
explanation of a slight obscuration of his spirit; but her heart, more
egotistical, had stoutly insisted that the cause must lie in her. Did he
love her less? Was she losing her charm for him? Were five years the
limit of a human relation like theirs? Was she to watch the dying down
of his flame, and try to shelter and fan it back to life as she had seen so
many other women do?
Or was the trouble only that she had done something to wound his
aloof and sensitive spirit, seldom aloof to her? Their intimate life had
never been a calm one. Farron's interests were concentrated, and his
temperament was jealous. A woman couldn't, as Adelaide sometimes
had occasion to say to herself, keep men from making love to her; she
did not always want to. Farron could be relentless, and she was not
without a certain contemptuous obstinacy. Yet such conflicts as these
she had learned not to dread, but sometimes deliberately to precipitate,
for they ended always in a deeper sense of unity, and, on her part, in a
fresh sense of his supremacy.
If he had been like most of the men she knew, she would have assumed
that something had gone wrong in business. With her first husband she
had always been able to read in his face as he entered the house the full

history of his business day. Sometimes she had felt that there was
something insulting in the promptness of her inquiry, "Has anything
gone wrong, Joe?" But Severance had never appeared to feel the insult;
only as time went on, had grown more and more ready, as her interest
became more and more lackadaisical, to pour out the troubles and,
much more rarely, the joys of his day. One of the things she secretly
admired most about Farron was his independence of her in such matters.
No half-contemptuous question would elicit confidence from him, so
that she had come to think it a great honor if by any chance he did drop
her a hint as to the mood that his day's work had occasioned. But for
the most part he was unaffected by such matters. Newspaper attacks
and business successes did not seem to reach the area where he suffered
or rejoiced. They were to be dealt with or ignored, but they could
neither shadow or elate him.
So that not only egotism, but experience, bade her look to her own
conduct for some explanation of the chilly little mist that had been
between them for twenty-four hours.
As soon as the drawing-room door closed behind her she ran up-stairs
like a girl. There was no light in his study, and she went on into his
bedroom. He was lying on the sofa; he had taken off his coat, and his
arms were clasped under his head; he was smoking a long cigar. To
find him idle was unusual. His was not a contemplative nature; a trade
journal or a detective novel were the customary solace of odd moments
like this.
He did not move as she entered, but he turned his eyes slowly and
seriously upon her. His eyes were black. He was a very dark man, with
a smooth, brown skin and thick, fine hair, which clung closely to his
broad, rather massive head. He was clean shaven, so that, as Adelaide
loved to remember a friend of his had once suggested, his business
competitors might take note of the stern lines of his mouth and chin.
She came in quickly, and shut the door behind her, and then dropping
on her knees beside him, she laid her head against his heart. He put out
his hand, touched her face, and said:

"Take off this veil."
The taking off of Adelaide's veil was not a process to be accomplished
ill-advisedly or lightly. Lucie, her maid, had put it on, with much
gathering together and looking into the