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Page 15
"What did you mean?" she said timidly.
The truth was that Mr. Rylands did not know. He had known this
sort of thing only in the abstract. He had never had the least
acquaintance with the class to which his wife had belonged, nor
known anything of their methods. It was a revelation to him now,
in the woman he loved, and who was his wife. He was not shocked so
much as he was frightened.
"You shall have the dress to-morrow, Ellen," he said gently, "and
you can put away these gewgaws. You don't need to look like Tinkie
Clifford."
He did not see the look of triumph that lit up her eye, but added,
"Go on and play."
She sat down obediently to the instrument. He watched her for a
few moments from the toe of her kid slipper on the pedals to the
swell of her shoulders above the keyboard, with a strange,
abstracted face. Presently she stopped and came over to him.
"And when I've got these nice calico frocks, and you can't tell me
from Jane, and I'm a good housekeeper, and settle down to be a
farmer's wife, maybe I'll have a secret to tell you."
"A secret?" he repeated gravely. "Why not now?"
Her face was quite aglow with excitement and a certain timid
mischief as she laughed: "Not while you are so solemn. It can
wait."
He looked at his watch. "I must give some orders to Jim about the
stock before he turns in," he said.
"He's gone to the stables already," said Mrs. Rylands.
"No matter; I can go there and find him."
"Shall I bring your boots?" she said quickly.
"I'll put them on when I pass through the kitchen. I won't be long
away. Now go to bed. You are looking tired," he said gently, as
he gazed at the drawn lines about her eyes and mouth. Her former
pretty color struck him also as having changed of late, and as
being irregular and inharmonious.
As Mrs. Rylands obediently ascended the stairs she heaved a faint
sigh, her only recognition of her husband's criticism. He turned
and passed quickly into the kitchen. He wanted to be alone to
collect his thoughts. But he was surprised to find Jane still
there, sitting bolt upright in a chair in the corner. Apparently
she had been expecting him, for as he entered she stood up, and
wiped her cheek and mouth with one hand, as if to compress her lips
the more tightly.
"I reckoned," she began, "that unless you war for forgettin'
everythin' in these yer goings on, ye'd be passin' through here to
tend to your stock. I've got a word to say to ye, Mr. Rylands.
When I first kem over here to help, I got word from the folks
around that your wife afore you married her was just one o' them
bally dancers. Well, that was YOUR lookout, not mine! Jane
Mackinnon ain't the kind to take everybody's sayin' as gospil, but
she kalkilates to treat folks ez she finds 'em. When she finds 'em
lyin' and deceivin'; when she finds em purtendin' one thing and
doin' another; when she finds 'em makin' fools tumble to 'em;
playing soots on their own husbands, and turnin' an honest house
into a music-hall and a fandango shop, she kicks! You hear me!
Jane Mackinnon kicks!"
"What do you mean?" said Mr. Rylands sternly.
"I mean," said Miss Mackinnon, striking her hips with the back of
her hands smartly, and accenting each word that dropped like a
bullet from her mouth with an additional blow,--"I--mean--that--
your--wife--had--one--of--her--old--hangers-on--from--'Frisco--
here--in--this--very--kitchen--all--the--arternoon; there! I mean
that whiles she was waitin' here for you, she was canoodlin' and
cryin' over old times with him! I saw her myself through the
winder. That's what I mean, Mr. Joshua Rylands."
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