Despite the lancinating neuralgia which imprisoned her for days at a stretch, Ruth preserved the disposition of a sundial: it was only serene hours of which she took count. There was nothing dolent in her tone; her manner, if languider than before, was unwarped by pain. About her husband, the parish, everything in fact, down to the minutiae of domestic economy, she was still alert. The servants adored her. In moments when the agony of her temples was acute enough to turn each individual hair above them red, when a pang would scatter through the cheekbones, loiter under the teeth, and then distend in zigzags and spirals through every nerve of the face, a moan might come from her, but never a complaint. Dr. McMasters, who attended her—a physician who had passed his prime among the poor, and whom the resuscitation of a stockjobber encountered by chance had lifted from the purlieus of Abingdon Square to the precincts of Fifth Avenue—expressed full confidence in her recovery; but meanwhile he marvelled not alone at her self-control, but at the solicitude which she was able to maintain in those of his indigent patients whom he had not the heart to abandon, and whose sufferings, if less acute than her own, poverty rendered more poignant. In these, as in many others, Ruth’s interest was unrelaxing, and her assistance life. While as to her pleasures, the which indeed had become scanty of late, the greatest, the uniquest of all was the touch of her husband’s hand. To her he was always the perfect lover whose charm had won her heart and the attention of all New York. She was proud of him as only a woman can be whose love has idealized a man into something more than flesh. And when, with the selfishness of those who know themselves adored, he would come to her in some momentary depression, it was joy to her to encourage him anew. To her individualism rarely an allusion did she make, and then so casually that you would have thought her discussing the momentary malaise of some stranger whose indisposition rumor had brought to her, or else so hopefully that you expected on the morrow to find her with health restored. Indeed, she was self-abnegatory, fretting only at the imprisonment which kept her from her husband’s side, supervising from her chair everything, even to the coal in the cellar, and in her darkened room clairvoyant as a nyctalope and weariless in thoughts and devices for him.
And this evening as he entered the room, “Chris!” she murmured, “it is so good of you!”
In her smile, in her gesture, in the expression which her lips took on, there was an ambient gratitude, a welcome, and a delight.
“You are better, are you not?”
“All day I thought if I could only get away from the pain; but see, you come, and the wish is fulfilled. Yes, I am better now. And you? Were you at the Bond today?”
“I was; and as I came from it I saw Yarde’s brougham at the door. What does Claire have him for?”
“Really, Chris, it is not her fault. He insists on coming. But if you object I will speak to her.”
“It is she that should object, not you, nor I.”
“Yes, Chris, it is for us. Claire!—why, she is a child yet: anyone can see that. Besides, she does not like him: she told me so.”
“H’m! she has an odd way of showing it, then.”
“Do you know, Chris, she really does dislike him? When she met him in Paris, she was taken, oh! just a little, as a girl might be—it appears that there are no young men in Paris—and so, as he seemed nice and agreeable, she was a little flattered, and, I suppose, just a little bit pleased as well. It is so easy to please a young girl! Well, from what she told me, he did not act right. He met Miss Pickett, Claire even introduced him, and then, how ever it came about I don’t know, but the attention which he had previously given to Claire he bestowed on her friend. He sees his mistake now, that is evident; but Claire will have none of him.”
“She has him here every day.”
“Chris, really, I think she hates him. She admitted as much the other night. When he comes here she snubs him. On the ship she was barely civil.”
“He hasn’t enough reputation to last overnight. Jones told me any number of things about him. It is an outrage that he should pursue her here. As for hating him, that’s all stuff and nonsense: she is too sweet-tempered to hate anyone. Besides, even if she did, it would only show that she was dead in love with him.”
“That is not like you, to be cynical.” And into Ruth’s face a sudden sadness came.
“There, sweetheart, forgive me. I am irritated today. I would not vex you: you know that. I will speak to Claire myself.” As he spoke, he took her hand in his, and Ruth, comforted by the caress and by the title, smiled anew.
“Yes,
