“Where?”
“For the doctor. The baby is sick”; and he looked hard at Desmond.
“I hope it will live for years and years,” I said.
“I know what you are at, Ben,” said Desmond. “I have wished the brat dead; but upon my soul, I have a stronger wish than that—I have forgotten it.”
There was no falseness in his voice; he spoke the truth.
“Forgive me, Des.”
“No matter about that,” he answered, sauntering off.
I felt happier; that spark of humanity warmed me. I might not have another. “I would,” I said, “that the last day, the last moments of my visit had come. You will see me henceforth in Surrey. I will live and die there.”
“To-night,” Ben said, “I am going to tell pa.”
“That is best.”
“Horrible atmosphere!”
“It would kill Verry.”
“You thrive in it,” he said, with a spice of irritation in his voice.
“Thrive!”
Adelaide and Ann proved gracious over my gift. They were talking of the doctor’s visit. Ann said the child was teething, for she had felt its gums; nothing else was the matter. There need be no apprehension. She should say so to Desmond and Ben, and would post a letter to her brother in unknown parts.
“Miss Hiticutt has sent for us to come over to tea,” Adelaide informed me. The black silk I wore would do, for we must go at once.
The quiet, formal evening was a pleasant relief, although I was troubled with a desire to inform Mrs. Somers of Ben’s engagement, for the sake of exasperating her. We came home too early for bed, Adelaide said; beside, she had music-hunger. I must sing. Mrs. Somers was by the fire, darning fine napkins, winking over her task, maintaining in her aspect the determination to avert any danger of a midnight interview with Desmond. That gentleman was at present sleeping on a sofa. I seated myself before the piano, wondering whether he slept from wine, ennui, or to while away the time till I should come. I touched the keys softly, waiting for an interpreting voice, and half unconsciously sang the lines of Schiller:
“I hear the sound of music, and
the halls
Are full of light. Who are the revelers?”
Desmond made an inarticulate noise and sprang up, as if in answer to a call. A moment after he stepped quietly over the back of the sofa and stood bending over me. I looked up. His eyes were clear, his face alive with intuition. Though Adelaide was close by, she was oblivious; her eyes were cast upward and her fingers lay languid in her lap. Ann, more lively, introduced a note here and there into my song to her own satisfaction. Mrs. Somers I could not see; but I stopped and, giving the music stool a turn, faced her. She met me with her pale, opaque stare, and began to swing her foot over her knee; her slipper, already down at her heel, fell off. I picked it up in spite of her negative movement and hung it on the foot again.