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Updated: June 16, 2025
Even during the brief hour of dinner he was led to feel that he had no inevitable place in the thoughts of either of the ladies, and this impression was increased as he sought their society later in the day. Moreover, in his changed mood he again began to chafe irritably at Ida's associations.
But while this fact and the differences of character explained Ida's manner toward the artist, it did not account for the expression of pain and perplexity that she occasionally detected in the young girl's face.
Yet even from her prison-cell she might hold over him in terrorem the threat of making known to Ida's mother the secret of her child's existence. All was not lost. She walked quietly to the carriage in waiting, while her companions, in an ecstasy of terror, seemed to have lost the power of locomotion, and had to be supported on either side.
Ida's own personality seemed to be reflected in everything, in the furniture, in the pictures, and above all in the unnaturally tidy children to whom he was presently introduced. He could still feel the one cold kiss which Ida had given him, and, when he was shown up to his room, he unconsciously gave the spot an extra dab with the sponge.
She was glad that her little girls were all in Ida's room, listening to a musical-box, and well out of hearing of such fearfully direct falsehoods, as it seemed to her, not knowing that the boys excused it to their own minds by the notion that it was not the SPRING of the engine that they had been meddling with, and that so they did not know how the harm had been done as if it made it any better that they lied to themselves as well as their father!
As she sat in her chamber after Paul had gone, fancying herself in Ida's place, imagining what she would hear him say, what would be her feelings, and what she would answer, her cheeks flushed, her breath came quickly, and there was a dew like that of dreaming girlhood in her faded eyes.
In the drawing-room the Vicar contrived to get a little quiet talk with Ida, while at the other end of the room Lady Palliser was expatiating to Bessie upon the minutest details of her boy's illness. He invited Ida's confidence, and frankly told her that he had fathomed the nature of Brian's disease.
The sudden thrill which this name excited made her realize the full measure of her present happiness. Arrived at the house, Jack's bashfulness returned. Even Ida's presence did not remove it. He hung back, and hesitated about going in. Mrs. Clifton observed this. "Jack," she said, "this house is to be your home while you are in Philadelphia. Come in, and Thomas shall go for your luggage."
Susan had not lived where every form of viciousness is openly discussed and practiced, without having learned the things necessary to a full understanding of Ida's technical phrases and references. The liveliness that had come with the departure of the headache vanished. To change the subject she invited Ida to dine with her. "What's the use of your spending money in a restaurant?" objected Ida.
Crump, whose interest was excited, led the way into the sitting-room. "You have in your family," said the stranger, after seating herself, "a girl named Ida." Mrs. Crump looked up suddenly and anxiously. Could it be that the secret of Ida's birth was to be revealed at last! "Yes," she said. "Who is not your child." "But whom I love as such; whom I have always taught to look upon me as a mother."
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