He nodded. "Some people are snubbing her. You know this town is long on that," he threw in with a short laugh. "I saw Mrs. Brewer--remember her?--she used to be Dorothy Hanlay--out and out snub Mildred at a party the other night. She came up to her after she'd been dancing with Billy--Lord knows how many times she'd danced with him that night--and Mrs. Brewer simply cut her. I saw it myself. Mildred got white for a moment, then smiled in a funny little way and turned away. Tough on her, wasn't it?--for really, she's a good deal of a kid, you know. And say, Ruth, there's something mighty decent about Edith--about Mrs. Blair. She saw it and right afterwards she went up to Mildred, seemed particularly interested in her, and drew her into her crowd. Pretty white, don't you think? That old hen--Mrs. Brewer--got red, let me tell you, for Edith can put it all over her, you know, on being somebody, and that _got_ her--good and plenty!"
There was a queer little sound from Ruth, a sound like a not quite suppressed sob; Ted rose, as if for leaving, and stood there awkwardly, his back to her. He felt that Ruth was crying, or at least trying not to cry. Why had he talked of a thing like that? Why did he have to bring in Edith Lawrence?
It seemed better to go on talking about it now, as naturally as he could. "I never thought there was much to Mildred," he resumed, not turning round. "She always seemed sort of stuck up with the fellows of our crowd. But I guess you never can tell. I saw her look at Billy Archer the other night." He paused with a little laugh. "There wasn't anything very stuck up about that look."
As still Ruth did not speak he began to talk about the property across the street being for sale. When he turned around for taking leave--it being past the time for going to Harriett's--it made him furious at himself to see how strained and miserable Ruth's face was. She scarcely said good-by to him; she was staring down the street where Mildred had disappeared a few moments before. All the way over to Harriett's he wondered just what Ruth was thinking. He was curious as well as self-reproachful.
When Ted entered the living-room at his sister Harriett's he felt as if something damp and heavy had been thrown around him. He got the feeling of being expected to contribute to the oppressiveness of the occasion. The way no one was sitting in a comfortable position seemed to suggest that constraint was deemed fitting. Cyrus was talking to Mr. McFarland with a certain self-conscious decorousness. Harriett's husband, the Rev. Edgar Tyler, sat before the library table in more of his pulpit manner than was usual with him in his household, as if--so it seemed to Ted--the relation of death to the matter in hand brought it particularly within his province. Ted had never liked him; especially he had hated his attitude about Ruth--his avowed sorrowfulness with which the heart had nothing to do. He resented the way his brother-in-law had made Harriett feel that she owed it to the community, to the church, not to countenance her sister. Harriett had grown into that manner of striving to do the right thing. She had it now--sitting a little apart from the others, as if not to intrude herself. Sitting there with those others his heart went out to Ruth; he was _for_ her, he told himself warmly, and he'd take nothing off of Cy about her, either! He watched Cyrus and thought of how strange it was that a brother and sister should be as different as he and Ruth were. They had always been different; as far back as he could remember they were different about everything. Ruth was always keyed up about something--delighted, and Cy was always "putting a crimp" in things. As a little boy, when he told Ruth things he was pleased about they always grew more delightful for telling her; and somehow when you told Cyrus about a jolly thing it always flattened out a little in the telling.