In the days that followed, Justin, going away in the morning very early
with a set face, coming home very late in the evening with that set face
still, hardly seemed to notice the children or Dosia.
"Justin has so much on his mind." Lois kept repeating the words over and
over, as if she found in them something by which to hold fast. Rich in
beauty as she was, full of love and tender favor, with the sweetness and
the pathos of an awakening soul, her husband seemed to have no eyes, no
thought for her. That one murmured sentence in the hallway was all her
food to live on--his only personal recognition of her.
[Illustration: "SHE CREPT OUT UPON THE LANDING OF THE STAIRS, AND SAT
THERE DESOLATELY ON THE TOP STEP"]
On the other hand, he poured out his affairs and his plans to her with a
freedom of confidence unknown before, a confidence which seemed to
pre-suppose her oneness of interest with him. He had talked exhaustively
about everything but those few days' absence; that was a sore that she
must not touch, a wound that could bear no probing. She had striven very
hard not to show when she didn't understand, taking her cues for assent
or dissent as he evidently wished her to, letting him think aloud, since
it seemed to be a relief to him, and saying little herself. The only
time when she broke in on her own account was when he told her about
Cater, and the defective bars, and Leverich's ultimatum. Her "Justin,
you wouldn't do that; you wouldn't tell!" met his quick response: "No, I
couldn't."
"Oh, I know that. I'd rather be a hundred times poorer than we are!
Aren't you glad that you couldn't do it?"
"No; I think I'm rather sorry," said Justin, with a half-smile. The
peculiar sharpness of the thought that it was between Cater and
Leverich--his friends, Heaven save the mark!--that he was being pushed
toward ruin, had not lost any of its edge.
There had been a tonic in a certain attitude of Cater's mind toward
Justin--an unspoken kindliness and admiration and tenderness such as an
older man who has been along a hard road may feel toward another who has
come along the same way. Cater's kind, unobtrusive comradeship, the
fair-dealing friendliness of his rivalry, had seemed to be one of the
factors of support, of honesty, of commercial righteousness. Justin
could smile proudly at Leverich, but he couldn't smile when he thought
of Cater--it weighed upon and humiliated him for the man who had been
his friend.
"I am glad, anyway!" said Lois. "It wouldn't have been _you_ if you had!
Can't you take a rest now, dear, when you look so ill? No, no; I didn't
mean that--of course you can't!"
"A _rest_!" He rose and walked up and down the room. "Lois, do you know
that, in some way, I've got to get it before the 13th? Those days in
Chicago--at the worst time! It makes me wild to think of the time I've
lost. I'm looking out for a partner who will buy out Leverich and
Martin, and we've got a chance yet--I'll swear we have! But Lewiston's
note has got to be paid first; then I can take time to breathe. Harker
saw a man from Boston from whom we might have borrowed the money, if I
had only been here. If we get that, we can hold over; if we don't, we go
to smash, and so does Lewiston. Lewiston _trusted_ me. I've been to
several places to-day to men that would be willing enough to lend the
money if they didn't know I needed it."
"George Sutton?" hazarded Lois.
Justin's lips curved bitterly. "Oh, he's a cur. He had some money
invested last year when he was sweet on Dosia, and drew it all out
afterward! And, after all, I went to him to-day, like a fool!"
"Can't you go to Eugene Larue?"
"No. We talked about it once, but he fought shy; he didn't think the
security enough. If he thought so then, it would be worse than useless
now."
"Mr. Girard?"
"There's no use telling things to him, he hasn't any money." Justin
turned a dim eye on her. "I tell you, Lois, I haven't left a stone
unturned, so far, that I could get at. If we could only sell the island!
Girard's looking it up for me; there may be a chance of that. There are
lots of chances to be thought out. I don't even know how we keep
running, but we do. Harker's a trump! If I can hold up my end, we'll be
all right."
"Then go to bed now," said Lois, with a quick dread that gave her
courage. "And you must have something to eat first--and to drink, too.
Come, Justin! Do as I say." Her voice had a new firmness in it which he
unconsciously obeyed. She crept to her bed at last, aching in every
limb, but with her baby pressed close to her, her one darling comfort,
the source from which she drew a new love as the child drew its life
from her. It was the first time in all her married life that she had
borne the burden of her husband's care, a burden from which she must
seek no solace from him.
She bent all her energies, these next days, to keeping him well fed, and
ordering everything minutely for his comfort when he came home, aided
and abetted by Dosia. The two women worked as with one thought between
them, as women can work, for the well-being of one they love, with fond
and minute care. Every detail, from the time he went away in the
morning, stooping slightly under the weight of something mysterious and
unseen, was ordered with reference to his home-coming at night--the
husband and father on whose strength all this helpless little family
hung for their own sustenance.
Everything that was done for him had to be done covertly, it was found;
he disliked any manifestation of undue attention to his wants. Sometimes
he was terribly irritable and unjust, and at others almost
heartbreakingly gentle and mild. Lois had persuaded him to have the
doctor, who told him seriously that he must stay home and rest--a futile
prescription, which he treated with scorn. Rest! He knew very well that
it was not rest that he needed, but money--money, money, the elixir of
life!
It was near the end of this week when Justin came home, as Lois could
see at once, revived and encouraged, though still abstracted. He had an
invitation to take a ride in the doctor's motor, the doctor being a man
who, when the hazard of dangerous cases had been extreme, absented
himself for a couple of hours, in which, under a breathless and unholy
speed of motoring, he reversed the pressure on his nerves, and came to
the renewed sanity of a wind-swept brain when every idea had been rushed
out of it.
Lois felt that it would be good for Justin, too, and was glad that he
had been persuaded to go; yet she caught him looking at her with such
strange intentness a couple of times during the dinner that it
discomposed her oddly. It made her a little silent; she pondered over it
after she had gone up, as usual, to the baby. Was there something wrong
with her appearance? She looked anxiously in the glass, and was annoyed
to find that the white fichu, open at the throat, was not on quite
straight, and her hair was a little disarranged. She was pale, and there
were dark lines under her eyes. She hated not to look nice. Yet it might
not be that. Was it, perhaps, that something else was wrong--that he had
bad news which he did not like to tell? Was he to leave her again on
some journey? She turned white for a moment, and sat down to get the
baby to sleep, and then resolutely tried to drive the thought from her.
Yet, as she sat there rocking gently, the thought still came back to
her, oddly, puzzlingly. Why had he looked at her like that? The smoke of
his pipe down-stairs kept her still aware of his presence.
Presently he came up-stairs and tiptoed into the room in clumsy fashion,
for fear of waking the baby, in his quest of a pair of gloves in a
chiffonier drawer. After finding them, he stopped for a moment in front
of her, with that odd, arrested expression once more.
"You don't mind my going out to-night and leaving you?" he murmured.
"The doctor ought to have asked _you_, instead; you need it more than
I."
"Oh, no, no!" she hastened to reassure. "I don't mind at all, really!"
Her eyes gazed up at him, limpidly clear, and emptied of self. "I have
to run up and down stairs so many times to baby now that I couldn't go,
no matter how much I was asked to. I'm only glad that you will have the
distraction--you need it. I hope you'll have a lovely time."
She listened to his descending footsteps, and after a moment or two
arose and laid the sleeping child down in his crib.
In the dim light she went about the room, picking up toys and little
discarded garments left by the children, folding the clothes away, her
tall, graceful figure, in the large curves of its repeated bending and
straightening, seeming to exemplify some unpainted Millet-like idea of
mother-work, emblematic of its unceasing round. She was hanging up a
tiny cloak in the half gloom of her closet, when she heard her husband's
step once more stealing into the room, and the next moment saw him
beside her.
"What's the matter?" she asked, with quick premonition.
"Nothing, nothing at all; we haven't started yet." He put one arm around
her and with the other lifted her face up toward his. "I only came back
to tell you"--His voice broke; there seemed to be a mist over the eyes
that were bent on hers. "I can't talk. I can't be as I ought to be,
Lois, until all this is over--but--I don't know what's getting into me
lately, you look so beautiful to me that I can't take my eyes off you! I
went around all to-day counting the hours, like a foolish boy, until it
was time to come back to you; I grudge every minute that I spend away
from my lovely wife."
Sometimes we have a happiness so much greater, so much more blessed than
our easily imagined bliss, that we can only hide our eyes from it at
first, like those of old, when in some humble and unthought-of place
they were visited by angels.