And then she had arranged a
feast--a homely little feast that was to culminate in a cake with a
hedge of little candles around the edge for his birthday, and a single
red one in the center, for theirs.
Well, and that was only part of it. She had planned, when the cake
should have come in, all lighted up, and the servants had gone away and
the other lights had been put out,--she had planned to tell him her
great news. She hadn't told him yet, though it was over a fortnight
since her visit to the doctor.
She had no reasoned explanation of her postponement of it. The instinct
that led her to keep it wholly to herself, was probably one of the
reflections of that morning with Portia. She was still in a penitential
mood when she went to the doctor--a mood which the contemplation of
Portia's frustrated life and her own undeservedly happy one, had bitten
deep into her soul. It was a mood that nothing but pain could satisfy.
The only relief she could get during that fortnight of packing and
leave-taking, came in flogging herself to do hard things--things that
hurt, physically and literally, I mean; that made her back ache and
cramped the muscles of her arms.
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