“Oh, what couldn’t I do, my dear, if I only had a chance?  Why doesn’t somebody see it at once—­notice me now, right here on the street?  You, madam, in that limousine—­look out and see me—­don’t go by!  You’re losing the chance of a lifetime!  You’re missing me—­me—­Ethel Knight!”

As the dame in her car sped smoothly by, Ethel suddenly laughed aloud.  But her laughter had a dangerous note, and she added fiercely, biting her lip: 

“Now, don’t be silly and burst into tears!”

“Ma’am?” said a voice.

She stopped with a jerk and looked up into the startled eyes of a massive young policeman.  Her last remark had been spoken directly up into his face, and the youth was blushing visibly.

“Oh!” she gasped.  “Excuse me!”

“Certainly, ma’am.”

And she hurried on.

This loneliness lasted several weeks.  Then Joe grew dimly aware of it, and came to her assistance with awkward efforts to comfort her.  He was at home more often at night.  His gruff voice took on a kindlier tone, and in an offhand manner intended to seem casual he would ask where she had been that day or what book she was reading.  And they would discuss it for a while.  He took her to the theatre and to a concert now and then.  They went for rides at night in his car, and he talked to her about his work.  She could feel his anxious friendliness.  “What a dear he is to me,” she thought.

As time went on this companionship grew so natural to them both that more than once Ethel felt in herself a content which made her a little uneasy.  As in his blunt kindly way Joe drew closer to her now, she had an awkward consciousness of being in her sister’s place.  No, not that exactly.  Still, she did not care to think of it.  She kept out of Amy’s room.  It had subtly changed and become Joe’s room—­to her mind at least—­though by little things he said and did she knew that Joe was keeping that idealized image of his wife still warm and living in his mind.

But was he—­altogether?  At times she would frown to herself a bit.  Joe loyal?  Yes, of course he was, she would indignantly declare.  In a novel Ethel had once read, the hero who had lost his wife had taken his grief in this same silent way; and the author had laid it down as a law that all quiet widowers are the kind who never, never marry again.  This thought had taken root in her mind; and she applied it now to Joe.

Soon at his suggestion she began to use some of Amy’s things.  One night when they were going out, he helped her slip into her sister’s soft luxurious sable cloak.  And as she turned, she detected a queerly uncertain look in Joe’s eyes.  But in an instant it was gone, and she soon dismissed her uneasiness.  For through the weeks that followed he became engrossed in his business and barely noticed her at all.

CHAPTER VI