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Elizabeth came home shortly before Christmas, undeniably glad to be back
and very gentle with them all. She set to work almost immediately on the
gifts, wrapping them and tying them with methodical exactness, sticking
a tiny sprig of holly through the ribbon bow, and writing cards with
neatness and care. She hung up wreaths and decorated the house, and
when she was through with her work she went to her room and sat with her
hands folded, not thinking. She did not think any more.
Wallie had sent her a flexible diamond bracelet as a Christmas gift and
it lay on her table in its box. She was very grateful, but she had not
put it on.
On the morning before Christmas Nina came in, her arms full of packages,
and her eyes shining and a little frightened. She had some news for
them. She hadn't been so keen about it, at first, but Leslie was like a
madman. He was so pleased that he was ordering her that sable cape she
had wanted so. He was like a different man. And it would be July.
Elizabeth kissed her. It seemed very unreal, like everything else. She
wondered why Leslie should be so excited, or her mother crying. She
wondered if there was something strange about her, that it should see so
small and unimportant. But then, what was important? That one got up
in the morning, and ate at intervals, and went to bed at night? That
children came, and had to be fed and washed and tended, and cried a
great deal, and were sick now and then?
She wished she could feel something, could think it vital whether Nina
should choose pink or blue for her layette, and how far she should
walk each day, and if the chauffeur drove the car carefully enough.
She wished she cared whether it was going to rain to-morrow or not, or
whether some one was coming, or not coming. And she wished terribly that
she could care for Wallie, or get over the feeling that she had saved
her pride at a cost to him she would not contemplate.
After a time she went upstairs and put on the bracelet. And late in the
afternoon she went out and bought some wool, to make an afghan. It eased
her conscience toward Nina. She commenced it that evening while she
waited for Wallie, and she wondered if some time she would be making an
afghan for a coming child of her own. Hers and Wallace Sayre's.
Suddenly she knew she would never marry him. She faced the future, with
all that it implied, and she knew she could not do it. It was horrible
that she had even contemplated it. It would be terrible to tell Wallie,
but not as terrible as the other thing. She saw herself then with the
same clearness with which she had judged Dick. She too, leaving her
havoc of wrecked lives behind her; she too going along her headstrong
way, raising hopes not to be fulfilled, and passing on. She too.