Harriet laughed at Alexina's wonder over her. "It took me a time to
realize that hospitality means the incidental oftener than the
invited," she confessed. "My guests, you know, Alexina, were formally
asked, and the other would have fretted me. That was why, I suppose, I
had no intimates."
Harriet never knew, it would seem, these days, whether the Judge, the
Colonel, Father Ryan, the man from the office chatting in the library
with the Major, one or all, were going to stay for supper or were not;
yet she had come to the place where she could smile in serene and
genuine welcome, the while everybody moved up and the coloured
housemaid slipped in an extra chair and plate.
And she only laid a hand on the spoon with which little Stevie
hammered his plate.
"I'd take it away and spank him myself, you know," confided Louise,
Stevie's mother, to Alexina; "I do spank William."
But all of life seemed to be moving for Harriet with serenity. Every
trivial happening was swallowed up in the joy that death had spared
her her husband. And the Major, whatever the agony, the horror,
preceding the acceptation of a maimed life, had not lost the vital
grace of humour. Life flowed in and out of the Rathbone home with him
for centre as it had used to do in and out of his office. The room
where he sat amid his papers and books was a rallying place because
the strong will and personality of the man in the wheeled chair made
it so.
"He's been meaning for years to do a series of guerrilla articles a
magazine has wanted of him, and now he's at them," said Harriet, "and
he has given in this far, in his stiff-necked pride, that he's bought
an interest in the paper for me, and it keeps him in touch and
absorbed."
The Major had been watching Alexina. At the end of several days'
observations he leaned back in his chair and addressed her. His eyes
were humorous. "There's an encouraging promise about you, Alexina," he
informed her. Then he caressed his lean chin with his lean, smooth
hand. "A promise that gives me hope. You've laughed at my jokes since
you've been here, and not from mere politeness either. Now, Harriet
smiles out of the goodness of her heart because she thinks she ought
to."
But he caught at Harriet's hand even while they all three laughed, for
it was patent to everybody that Harriet had no idea what his jokes
were about, which was the amusing thing of all, seeing that it was the
Major's humour that she confessed had attracted her.
And yet the eyes of the man often deepened and glowed as he watched
her move about the house, for she made even the trivial duties seem
beautiful because of her unconscious earnestness and her joy in their
doing.