“‘The Valley of the Dog, “‘The Car of Juggernaut, “‘Insanity, “‘Intemperance, “‘Tobacco, “‘Slavery, “‘Church and State, “‘Conceit, “‘Surgery, “‘The English Government, “‘Marriage, “‘Flirtations, “‘Ladies as Physicians, “‘The Wicked World, “‘A Quotation from Scott.’
“And that isn’t half. I began to grow interested there, and forgot to write.”
“Where did the professional call come in?”
“Oh, that doesn’t take a second. He watches his patient while he talks! Oh, and he told two hospital stories, a story of his school life, and about being lost in the woods, and about a camp-meeting! He is from Mississippi. Your Mr. Towne couldn’t say so much in ten years.”
“He says that the disease in my lungs is not progressive, but that I should protect my health! I ought to spend every winter in the West Indies or in the south of Europe! South of Europe, indeed! On your father’s business! Now if I had married John Gesner I might have spent my winters in any part of the civilized world.”
“The future is veiled from us mercifully.”
Dinah laughed. “Mother, you forget about love.”
“_Love!_” exclaimed Mrs. Wadsworth scornfully, “I should like to know what love is.”
“Father knows,” said Dinah. “Have you read ‘Elizabeth,’ Tessa?”
“I’d _die_ before I’d act as she did, wouldn’t you? I’d die before I’d let any body know that I cared for him more than he cared for me, wouldn’t you?”
“Did Mr. Towne speak of Sue Greyson?” inquired Mrs. Wadsworth.
“He must have said something. Couldn’t you judge of his feelings towards her?”
“H’m,” ejaculated Mrs. Wadsworth, glancing up at the uneasy lips, “if he can’t talk or sing, he can say something.”
Standing alone at one of the windows in her chamber, she watched the sun go down the last night of the old year.
In her young indignation, she had called Ralph Towne some harsh names; while under the fascination of his presence, she had thought that she did not blame him for any thing; but standing alone with the happy, false old year behind her, and the new, empty year opening its door into nowhere, she cried, with a voiceless cry: “You are not true; you are not sincere; you are shallow and selfish.”
At this moment, watching the same sunset, for he had an appreciation of pretty things, he was driving homeward almost as nerve-shaken as Tessa herself; according to his measure, he was regretting that these two trusting women were suffering because of his—he did not call it selfishness—he had been merely thoughtless.