When he had departed, Madge glanced with curiosity round the apartment, and her first comment was:
‘You ought to have curtains over that doorway, Philip’ (she alluded to the uncovered entrance to a small recess which was a storeroom); ‘and I must come in soon and dust the place thoroughly. I wonder you have not been choked. See here; it is positively disgraceful.’
She ran her finger over the ledge of a bookcase, making a line in the dust. And with half-timid but wholly curious interest, she continued to scrutinise the place, making mental notes of what she would have to do to insure his comfort.
He was astounded. She had been with Mr Shield. She must have been made acquainted with the terrible nature of his position; and yet she could placidly criticise the furniture of his room and interest herself in a question of dusting! He had often admired her cool firmness in moments of accident, illness, or difficulty; but he could find nothing to admire in this absolute indifference to the crisis in his affairs. In his bitterness he was unjust, and his reflections were to this effect: ‘How blessed are those who can be callously calm in the presence of suffering—of the suffering even of those they are supposed to love! How many pangs they must be spared; how easy it must be for them to pass comfortably through the world, where every step we take leads us by some scene of misery. Ay, they are the happy ones who can pass with eyes closed, and therefore, nerves unshaken.’
But even whilst these uneasy thoughts were flashing through his brain, he felt ashamed of himself for allowing them to be suggested by Madge, whose calmness he knew was not due to want of feeling, but to a delicate shrinking from the display of it.
She appeared to become suddenly aware of his singular silence, and looked quickly towards him. His face was in shadow, and she could not see the ravages which anxiety and sleepless nights had made upon it; and he did not observe that under her apparent composure there was suppressed much agitation. The tender eyes looked at him wistfully, as if afraid that she had done something to offend him, and that he was about to chide her.
‘I was wondering if it can be possible that you have not heard how things stand with me. I was at Willowmere this forenoon, seeking you, and was told that you had gone to see Mr Shield, intending also to call on me. Has he said nothing to you about the letter I sent to him last night? I was obliged to write, because he persists in refusing to listen to any explanations from me in person. Has he said nothing about it?’