Then she ran into Monteriano
and shouted up and down its streets until such time as her
young master should hear her.
The reception-room was sacred to the dead wife. Her
shiny portrait hung upon the wall--similar, doubtless, in all
respects to the one which would be pasted on her tombstone.
A little piece of black drapery had been tacked above the
frame to lend a dignity to woe. But two of the tacks had
fallen out, and the effect was now rakish, as of a
drunkard's bonnet. A coon song lay open on the piano, and
of the two tables one supported Baedeker's "Central Italy,"
the other Harriet's inlaid box. And over everything there
lay a deposit of heavy white dust, which was only blown off
one moment to thicken on another. It is well to be
remembered with love. It is not so very dreadful to be
forgotten entirely. But if we shall resent anything on
earth at all, we shall resent the consecration of a deserted
room.
Miss Abbott did not sit down, partly because the
antimacassars might harbour fleas, partly because she had
suddenly felt faint, and was glad to cling on to the funnel
of the stove. She struggled with herself, for she had need
to be very calm; only if she was very calm might her
behaviour be justified. She had broken faith with Philip
and Harriet: she was going to try for the baby before they
did. If she failed she could scarcely look them in the face
again.
"Harriet and her brother," she reasoned, "don't realize
what is before them.
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