Doris, silent and forgotten, could not keep her eyes
for long from the two distant figures--from this new Arthur, and the
sallow-faced, dark-eyed witch who had waved her wand over him.
_Wasn't_ she glad to see her husband courted--valued as he
deserved--borne along the growing stream of fame? What matter, if she
could only watch him from the bank?--and if the impetuous stream were
carrying him away from her? No! She wasn't glad. Some cold and deadly
thing seemed to be twining about her heart. Were they leaving the dear,
poverty-stricken, debt-pestered life behind for ever, in which, after
all, they had been so happy: she, everything to Arthur, and he, so
dependent upon her? No doubt she had been driven to despair, often, by
his careless, shiftless ways; she had thirsted for success and money;
just money enough, at least, to get along with. And now success had
come, and money was coming. And here she was, longing for the old, hard,
struggling past--hating the advent of the new and glittering future. As
she sat at Lady Dunstable's table, she seemed to see the little room in
their Kensington house, with the big hole in the carpet, the piles of
papers and books, the reading-lamp that would smoke, her work-basket,
the house-books, Arthur pulling contentedly at his pipe, the
fire crackling between them, his shabby coat, her shabby
dress--Bliss!--compared to this splendid scene, with the great Vandycks
looking down on the dinner-table, the crowd of guests and servants, the
costly food, the dresses, and the diamonds--with, in the distance, _her_
Arthur, divided, as it seemed, from her by a growing chasm, never
remembering to throw her a look or a smile, drinking in a tide of
flattery he would once have been the first to scorn, captured,
exhibited, befooled by an unscrupulous, egotistical woman, who would
drop him like a squeezed orange when he had ceased to amuse her.
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