Alice Duer Miller

“ Gorham, slightly stooping and holding up the front of her dress, hurried up-stairs.
A good-looking young man of about twenty seven or eight was lying back on his pillows, watching with an irritable eye the arrangements of his trained nurses.
As his mother entered he turned to her.
"Ah," he said, "at last! Have you sent for Evie?"
"No, my dear."
"Well, do it at once."
"It is impossible, Mark."
"And why, I should like to know? She doesn't live ten blocks from here."
"Improper, then."
"Improper! to send for a fellow's wife when he's ill?"
"Evelina is not your wife." ”

“ Gorham, the doctor, and two trained nurses—to say nothing of the man-servant.
"My dear Evelina," cried her former mother-in-law, taking just an instant to glance disapprovingly at the younger woman's sky-blue dress, pearls, and solitary male companion, "my son would never have intruded upon you if he had not been delirious, and we are here to take him back."
"But Mark is not here," said Evelina. "No one is here?" she added, turning to the butler.
"Beg pardon, madam—yes," replied the butler; "a gentleman has gone up to the spare room. ”

“ Mark was at once irritable, critical, and in some ways extremely helpless—"
Mr. Treadwell shook his head. "I can't wonder you don't dare to try again," he murmured.
"It isn't that."
"You do not mean to imply you still retain affection for Gorham?"
There was a pause—slight, indeed, but too long to please Mr. Treadwell—before Mrs. Gorham answered:
"No, nor that, either. It's rather hard to explain. Women—some women, that is—are really monogamous—no, that isn't the right word; but you know what I mean. ”

“ Evie, the nurses found, if she could not always guess what he had said, was able to keep him relatively calm when the guess was wrong.
Most of Evelina's friends and relatives—like Mr. Treadwell—disapproved of Mark, and their disapproval was embittered by remembrance of the lack of firmness with which she had always treated the culprit. Some were for her leaving the house instantly; others for her turning Mark out at any cost; and if the result proved fatal, some of them agreed they would not feel that the world had suffered much of a loss. ”

“ And now your conscience can be quite at rest, for I am going away to-morrow. You will have the house to yourself."
Probably she had not expected this piece of news to be received with perfect acquiescence, but even she was not prepared for the violence of the scene which immediately followed. Never had there been such appeals, such reproaches. The nurses hurried in, and Evie went out, trying to tell herself that Mark had never been able to bear not getting his own way, even in trifles. ”

“ She drew the woman into a neighboring room, and, when she had shut the door, explained that her son must be given a quieting draught; that he and his wife had parted on bad terms more than a year before; that they had been divorced for several months; that his had always been a difficult nature to control; that she herself had been early left a widow; and she was proceeding to outline some of the problems of his education when the nurse interrupted her to say that she really must return to her patient. ”

“ The theory that the whole responsibility of the situation was to rest on the doctor and nurses—the theory that Evelina was to go her way as if some stranger had taken refuge in her house—lasted in fact about twenty-four hours. ”

“ Gorham, interrupting a further catalogue of her charms. "My marriage certainly was not very successful. I don't suppose there could have been a more trying man to live with than Mark was in many ways. ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1942, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 80 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”