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But all sorts of new standards and ideals had begun to torment him since the beginning of his friendship with Marcella Maxwell, and a hundred questions that had never yet troubled him were even now pressing through his mind as to his relations to his wife, and the inexorableness of his debt towards her.
The jam tarts got burned; she forgot about them. It was only when she remembered that the letter could not go to the post for three days that she decided to write it again at greater leisure. The two years had aged Marcella; the doctor's letters were manna in the desert to her spirit, his books the only paths out of the hard, tough life of everyday.
If he could find some grievance against Marcella he would be able to excuse himself to himself for getting drunk, for taking the money that he knew she needed. He wanted peace unity within. So he raved at her because the tag had come off his shoelace, and it was her wifely duty to see that a new lace had been put into the shoe that morning.
Marcella meanwhile sat on her stool, her chin upon her hand, and her full glowing eyes turned upon the little spectacle, absorbing it all with a covetous curiosity. The light-heartedness, the power of enjoyment left in these old folk struck her dumb. Mrs.
Lady Winterbourne's tragic air yielded to a slow smile. "You look very well, my dear. That white becomes you charmingly; so do the pearls. I don't wonder that Aldous always knows where you are." Marcella raised her eyes and caught those of Aldous fixed upon her from the other side of the room. She blushed, smiled slightly, and looked away.
Marcella had her thoughts to herself. But they were not of a kind that any one need have wished to share. In the first place, she was tired of idleness.
The stately lady had died while she was still a child at her first school; she could recollect her own mourning frock; but that was almost the last personal remembrance she had, connected with the Merritts. And now this note of intense personal and family pride, under which Mrs. Boyce's voice had for the first time quivered a little! Marcella had never heard it before, and it thrilled her.
He thought of the rapid talk she had poured out upon him, after their compact of friendship, in their walk back to the church, of her enthusiasm for her Socialist friends and their ideals, with a momentary madness of self-suppression and tender humility. In reality, a man like Aldous Raeburn is born to be the judge and touchstone of natures like Marcella Boyce.
Marcella could not help entreating. Mrs. Boyce drew herself together with a quick movement as though her daughter jarred upon her, and opened the note. Marcella dared not look over her. There was a dignity about her mother's lightest action, about every movement of her slender fingers and fine fair head, which had always held the daughter in check, even while she rebelled. Mrs.
Louis nodded, and she shuffled off, appearing a few moments later with an old man who had evidently been waiting about for the chance of earning a few shillings. "It isn't a bit like Lochinvar," whispered Marcella, "or Jock of Hazeldean." "Poor old lady," he whispered, suddenly gentle. The two old people sat down on the form beside Louis, who edged a little closer to Marcella.
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