Nan's high exaltation of spirit, which still soared at the altitude to
which the events of the afternoon had lifted it, next expressed itself
in a characteristically feminine manner: she picked flowers in the
garden, arranged them, placed them effectively, set the table herself,
lighted the lamps, touched a match to the wood fire always comfortable
in San Francisco evenings, slightly altered the position of the chairs,
visited Wing Sam with fresh instructions. Gringo, who looked on all
this as for his especial benefit, took his place luxuriously before the
grate. It was a cozy, homelike scene. Then she dressed slowly and
carefully in her most becoming gown--the only gown Keith had ever
definitely singled out for individual praise--took especial pains with
her hair, and finally descended to join Gringo. The latter, as a
greeting intended to show his entire confidence, promptly rolled over
to expose his vitals to her should it be her pleasure to hurt a poor
defenceless dog. He was a ridiculous sight, upside down, his tongue
lolling out, his eye rolled up at her adoringly. She laughed at him a
little, then leaned swiftly over to confide something in his ear.
But that evening Keith was late. The clock on the mantel chimed clearly
the hour, then the quarter and the half. Wing Sam came to protest
aggreivedly that "him glub catchum cold--you no wait!" Nan was severe
with Wing Sam and his suggestion--so unwontedly severe that Wing Sam
returned to the kitchen muttering darkly. He had caught the atmosphere
of celebration, somehow, and on his own-initiative had frosted with
wonderful white a cake not yet cut, and on the cake had carefully
traced pink legends in Chinese and English characters. The former was
one of those conventional mottoes seen on every laundry, club, and
temple which would have translated "Health, long life, and happiness";
the other Wing Sam had copied from a lithograph he much admired. It
read "Use Rising Sun Stove Polish." Glowering with resentment, Wing Sam
scraped the frosting from the cake.
At eight o'clock a small boy delivered a note at the door and scuttled
back to the centre of excitement. It was a scrawl from Keith, saying
that he was detained, would not be home to dinner, might not be in at
all. Nan sat down to a cold, belated meal served by a loftily
disapproving Chinaman. She tried to think of her pride in Keith, and
the work he, in company with his fellows, was doing for the city; to
recall some of her exaltation of the afternoon; but it was very
difficult. Her little preparations were so much nearer. The table, the
flowers, the shaded lamps, the fire on the hearth, her gown, the twist
of her hair, all mocked her anticipations. In spite of herself her
spirits went down to zero. She could not eat, she could not even sit at
the table through the service of the various courses. Midway in the
meal she threw aside her napkin and returned abruptly to the
drawing-room. The fire was snapping merrily on the hearth. Gringo
opened his eyes at her entrance, recognized his beloved mistress, and
rolled over as usual, all four legs in the air, his tender stomach
confidingly exposed, for Who could be so brutal as to hurt a poor,
defenceless dog? Nan kicked him pettishly in the ribs. Gringo stopped
panting, and drew in his tongue, but otherwise did not shift his
posture. This was, of course, a mistake. Nan kicked him again. Gringo
rose deliberately and retired with dignity to the coldest, darkest,
most cheerless corner he could find, where he sat and looked dejected.
"You look such a silly fool!" Nan told him relentlessly.
Thus passed the moment of exaltation and expansion. If Keith had come
home to dine, it is probable that the barrier between them--of which he
was only dimly conscious--would have been broken. But by midnight Nan
had, as she imagined, "thought out" the situation. She was able to see
him now through eyes purged of self-pity or self-thought. She came to
full realization, which she formulated to herself, that she was not now
the central point of his interest--that she was "no longer" the central
point, as she expressed it. She was right also in her conclusion that
all day long he hardly gave her more than a perfunctory thought. So
far, her facts were absolutely correct. But Nan was, in spite of her
natural good mind and married experience, too ignorant of man
psychology to draw the true conclusion. Indeed, very few women ever
realize man's possibilities of single-minded purpose and concentration
to the temporary exclusion of other things. Keith's whole being was
carried by this moral movement in which he was involved. He simply took
Nan for granted; and that is something a woman never gets used to, and
always misinterprets.
"He no longer loves me!" she said to herself, in this hour of plain
thinking. She faced it squarely; and her heart sank to the depths; for
she still loved him, and the sight of him that afternoon amid the guns
had told her how much.
But her next thought was not of herself, but of him, and the situation
in which, he was working out his destiny. "How can I best help?" she
asked herself, which showed that the spirit aroused in her that
afternoon had not in reality died. And her intellect relentlessly
pointed out to her that her only aid would come from her
self-effacement, her standing one side. When the great work was done,
then, perhaps--
So affairs in the Keith household went on exactly as before. Nobody but
Gringo knew that anything had happened; and he only realized that the
universe had suffered an upheaval, so that now mistresses might kick
their poor defenceless dogs in the stomach.