Chapter VIII

When Maria’s father returned that night, he came, as usual, straight to the room wherein she and Mrs. Addix were sitting.  Maria regarded her father with a sort of contemptuous wonder, tinctured with unwilling admiration.  Her father, on his return from his evenings spent with Miss Ida Slome, looked always years younger than Maria had ever seen him.  There was the humidity of youth in his eyes, the flush of youth on his cheeks, the triumph of youth in his expression.  Harry Edgham, in spite of lines on his face, in spite, even, of a shimmer of gray and thinness of hair on the temples, looked as young as youth itself, in this rejuvenation of his affection, for he was very much in love with the woman whom he was to marry.  He had been faithful to his wife while she lived, even the imagination of love for another woman had not entered his heart.  His wife’s faded face had not for a second disturbed his loyalty; but now the beauty of this other woman aroused within him long dormant characteristics, like some wonderful stimulant, not only for the body, but for the soul.  When he looked in Ida Slome’s beautiful face he seemed to drink in an elixir of life.  And yet, down at the roots of the man’s heart slept the memory of his wife; for Abby Edgham, with her sallow, faded face, had possessed something which Ida Slome lacked, and which the man needed, to hold him.  And always in his mind, at this time, was the intention to be more than kind to his motherless little daughter, not to let her realize any difference in his feeling for her.

When he came to-night, he looked at the sleeping Mrs. Addix, and at Maria, taking painful stitches in her dresser cover, at first with a radiant smile, then with the deepest pity.

“Poor little soul,” he said.  “You have had a long evening to yourself, haven’t you?”

“I don’t mind,” replied Maria.  She was thinking of the torn wall-paper, and she did not look her father fully in the eyes.

“Has she been asleep ever since I went?” inquired Harry, in a whisper.

“Yes, sir.”

“Poor little girl.  Well, it will be livelier by-and-by for you.  We’ll have company, and more going on.”  Harry then went close to Mrs. Addix, sitting with her head resting on her shoulder, still snoring with those puffs of heavy breath.  “Mrs. Addix,” he said.

Mrs. Addix did not stir; she continued to snore.

“Mrs. Addix!” repeated Harry, in a louder tone, but still the sleeping woman did not stir.

“Good Lord, what a sleeper!” said Harry, still aloud.  Then he shook her violently by the shoulder.  “Come, Mrs. Addix,” said he, in a shout; “I’ve got home, and I guess you’ll want to be going yourself.”

Mrs. Addix moved languidly, and glanced up with a narrow slit of eye, as dull as if she had been drugged.  Harry shook her again, and repeated his announcement that he was home and that she must want to go.  At last he roused her, and she stood up with a dazed expression.  Maria got her bonnet and shawl, and she gazed at them vaguely, as if she were so far removed from the flesh that the garments thereof perplexed her.  Maria put on her bonnet, standing on tiptoe, and Harry threw the shawl over her shoulders.  Then she staggered out of the room with a mumbled good-night.