Page:A Double Marriage.pdf/16

To-day he did not return.

Lucille dressed with that feeling of loneliness, of strangeness, of mystery, which had been her portion ever since she married—the sensation of not understanding life, the feeling of impotence to readjust what had gone wrong, while woefully aware that everything was wrong. She ate her breakfast in silence, in the little methodical way which had so irritated him, taking everything in the correct way—the salt, the pepper, pouring out the coffee slowly, and taking time, consuming nearly half an hour; when he had finished in a moment, counting time for feeding as wasted from the day, sometimes eating little or nothing. A few weeks after their marriage, he had begun taking his cup of coffee away with him into his study, then at last Lucille had cried over it. Couldn't he even spend half an hour at breakfast with her? She only saw him at meals. He had restrained himself from growing angry, and after that had sat, good-naturedly bored, while she finished her breakfast, conscious that her being so well brought up jarred, that something barbarous within him demanded the companionship of a wild, untutored thing, snatching at corn in a field, or picking berries in some wilderness.

After breakfast she interviewed' the cook,