He lowered the bottle to the table. As he straightened up, he caught sight of her. His expression changed; but the change was not nearly enough either in degree or in kind to satisfy her. "Hello!" cried he carelessly. "Good morning."
She got ready to be kissed. But, instead of coming toward her, he half turned away, to hold the test tube up between his eyes and the light. "Um—mm," he grumbled, shaking it again and again, and each time looking disappointedly at the unchanged liquid.
Like all American girls of the classes that shelter their women, she had been brought up to accept as genuine the pretense of superhuman respect and deference the American man—usually in all honesty—affects toward woman—until he marries her, or for whatever reason becomes tired and truthful. She had been confirmed in these ideas of man as woman’s incessant courtier, almost servant, by receiving for the last five lively years the admiration, exaggerated and ardent, which physical charm, so long as it is potent, exacts from the male. No more than other women of her age—or than older women—or than the men had she penetrated the deceptive surface of things and discovered beneath "chivalry’s" smug meaningless professions the reality, the forbearance of "strength" with "weakness," the graciousness of superior for inferior. Thus, such treatment as this of Dick’s would have been humiliating from a casual man, on a casual occasion. From her husband, her lover, the man she had just been garlanding with all the fairest flowers of her ardent young heart—from him, and on this "first" morning, this unconcern, which Nanny’s talk enabled her to understand, was worse than stab into feminine vanity; it was stab straight into her inmost self, the seat of her life.
She dared not admit the wound—not to her own secret thought. Bravely she struggled until her voice and manner were under control. "I’ve come to take you to breakfast," said she. It seemed to her that her tone was gratifying evidence of triumph of strength of character over "silly supersensitiveness—as if Dick could mean to hurt _me_!"
"Breakfast," repeated he. His gaze was discontentedly upon the bottle whose contents had acted disappointingly. "Breakfast— Oh, yes— Don’t wait on me. I had coffee before I came down here. I’ll be along in a few minutes." He took up the bottle again, resumed the cautious pouring.