"Well, I must run away now," said Zoe, jumping up. "Here"s something to sweeten your imprisonment," putting a box of confectionery into his hand.
"Good-by," and she tripped away.
She met her husband in the hall upon which their rooms opened. "Where have you been?" he asked coldly, and with a suspicious look.
"That"s my affair," she returned, flushing, and with a saucy little toss of her pretty head.
He gave her a glance of mingled surprise and displeasure. "What has come over you, Zoe?" he asked. "Can"t you give a civil answer to a simple question?"
"Of course I can, Mr. Travilla, but I think it"s a pretty story if I"m to be called to account as to where I go even about the house."
"Nothing but a guilty conscience could have made you look at my question in that light," he said, leaning against the mantel and looking down severely at her as she stood before him, for they were now in her boudoir.
"I presume you have been in Max"s room, condoling with and encouraging him in his defiance of grandpa"s authority; and let me tell you, I won"t allow it."
"It makes no difference whether you allow it or not," she said, turning away with a contemptuous sniff. "I"m my own mistress."
"Do you mean to defy my authority, Zoe?" he asked, with suppressed anger.
"Yes, I do. I"ll do anything in the world for love and coaxing, but I won"t be driven. I"m your wife, sir, not your slave."
"I have no desire to enslave you, Zoe," he said, his tone softening, "but you are so young, so very young for a married woman, that you surely ought to be willing to submit to a little loving guidance and control."
"I didn"t perceive much love in the attempt you made just now," she said, seating herself and opening a book.
He watched her for a moment. She seemed absorbed in reading, and he could not see that the downcast eyes were too full of tears to distinguish one letter from another.
He left the room without another word, and hardly had the door closed on him when she flung the book from her, ran into the dressing-room, and throwing herself on a couch, cried as if her heart would break.
"He"s all I have, all I have!" she moaned, "and he"s beginning to be cruel to me! Oh, what shall I do! what shall I do! Papa, papa, why did you die and leave your darling all alone in this cold world?"
She hoped Edward would come back presently, say he was sorry for his brutal behavior, and try to make his peace with her by coaxing and petting; but he did not, and after a while she gave up expecting him, undressed, went to bed and cried herself to sleep, feeling that she was a sadly ill-used wife.
Meanwhile Edward had returned to the library for a time, then gone into the family parlor, hoping and half expecting to find Zoe there with the rest; but the first glance showed him that she was not in the room.
He made no remark about it, but sitting down beside his mother, tried to interest himself in the evening paper handed him by his grandfather.
"What have you done with your wife, young man?" asked his sister Elsie sportively. "We have seen nothing of her since supper."
"I left her in her room," he answered in a tone in which there seemed a shade of annoyance.
"Have you locked her up there for bad behavior?" asked Rosie, laughing.
"Why, what do you mean, Rosie?" he returned, giving the child a half-angry glance, and coloring deeply.
"Oh, I was only funning, of course, Ned. So you needn"t look so vexed about it; that"s the very way to excite suspicion that you have done something to her," and Rosie laughed gleefully.
But to the surprise of mother and sisters, Edward"s brow darkened, and he made no reply.
"Rosie," said Violet, lightly, "you are an incorrigible tease. Let the poor boy alone, can"t you?"
"Thank you, Mrs. Raymond," he said, with a forced laugh, "but I wouldn"t have Rosie deprived of her sport."
"I hope," remarked Mrs. Travilla, with a kindly though grave look at her youngest daughter, "that my Rosie does not find it sport to inflict annoyance upon others."
"No, mamma, not by any means, but how could I suppose my wise oldest brother would care for such a trifle?" returned the little girl in a sprightly tone.
"My dear," said her mother, "it is the little things--little pleasures, little vexations--that far more than the great make up the sum total of our happiness or misery in this life."
Edward was very silent during the rest of the evening, and his mother, watching him furtively and putting that and that together, felt sure that something had gone wrong between him and his young wife.
When the good-nights had been said and the family had scattered to their rooms, he lingered behind, and his mother, who had left the room, perceiving it, returned to find him standing on the hearth, gazing moodily into the fire.
She went to him, and laying her hand gently on his shoulder. "My dear boy," she said, in her sweet low tones, "I cannot help seeing that something has gone wrong with you; I don"t ask what it is, but you have your mother"s sympathy in every trouble."
"It is unfortunately something you would not want me to repeat even to you, my best and dearest of mothers, but your a.s.surance of sympathy is sweet and comforting, nevertheless," he said, taking her in his arms with a look and manner so like his father"s, that tears sprang unbidden to her eyes.
"Ah," he said presently, with a sigh that betrayed more than he was aware of, "my father was a happy man in having such a woman for his wife!"
"A good husband makes a good wife, my boy," she returned, gazing searchingly yet tenderly into his eyes; "and I think no woman with any heart at all could have failed to be such to him."
"I am not worthy to be his son," he murmured, the hot blood mounting to his very hair.
There was a moment or more of silence, then she said, softly caressing his hair and cheek as she spoke, "Edward, my son, be very patient, very gentle, forbearing and loving toward the orphan child, the care of whom you a.s.sumed of your own free will, the little wife you have promised to love and cherish to life"s end."
"Yes, mother, I have tried very earnestly to be all that to her--but she is such a child that she needs guidance and control, and I cannot let her show disrespect to you or my grandfather."
"She has always been both dutiful and affectionate to me, Ned, and I have never known her to say a disrespectful word to or about your grandfather."
"Did you not notice the looks she gave him at the table, to-night? the tone in which she replied when he spoke to her?"
"I tried not to do so," she said with a smile. "I learned when my first children were young that it was the part of wisdom to be sometimes blind to venial faults. Not," she added more gravely, "that I would ever put disrespect to my father in that category, but we must not make too much of a little girlish petulance, especially when excited by a generous sympathy with the troubles of another."
The cloud lifted from his brow. "How kind in you to say it, mother dear!
kind to her and to me. Yes, she is very fond of Max, quite as if he were a younger brother, and it is very natural that she should sympathize with him when in disgrace."
"And having been so petted and indulged by her father, allowed to have her own way in almost everything, and seldom, if ever, called to account for her doings, comings and goings, she can hardly fail to think my father"s rule strict and severe."
"True," Edward responded with a sigh, "and grandpa is a strict disciplinarian, yet so kind and affectionate with it all that one cannot help loving him."
"So I think. And now, good-night, my dear son. I must go; and perhaps your little wife is looking and longing for your coming. She is very fond and proud of her young husband," and with a motherly kiss and smile she left him.
Edward paced the floor for several minutes with thoughtful air, then went up-stairs to Zoe"s boudoir.
She was not there or in the dressing-room. He took up a lamp and went on into the adjoining bedroom. Shading the light with his hand, he drew near the bed with noiseless step.
She lay there sleeping, tears on her eyelashes and her pillow wet with them. His heart smote him at the sight. She looked such a mere child and so sweet and innocent that he could hardly refrain from imprinting a kiss upon the round rosy cheek and the full red lips.
And he longed for a reconciliation, but it seemed cruel to wake her, so it should be the first thing in the morning, he said to himself.