neither the imagination nor the
heart to go out in the thought of the different thing it had been to
her?

He supposed not; certainly they had given no evidence of any such
disposition. It hardened him against them. He hated the thought of the
gay tea given for Amy that afternoon when Ruth, just back after all
those years away, was home alone with her father, who was dying. Amy
they were taking in so graciously--because things had gone right with
her; Ruth, whom they knew, who had been one of them, they left
completely out. There flamed up a desire to take Amy with him, as
against them, to show them that she was sweeter and larger than they,
that she understood and put no false value on a cordiality that left the
heart hard.

But Amy looked so much one of them, seemed so much one with them in her
talk about them, that he put off what he wanted to say, listening to
her. And yet, he assured himself, that was not the whole of Amy; he
softened and took heart in the thought of her tenderness in moments of
love, her sweetness when the world fell away and they were man and woman
to each other. Those real things were stronger in her than this crust of
worldliness. He would reach through that to the life that glowed behind
it. If he only had the skill, the understanding, to reach through that
crust to the life within, to that which was real, she would understand
that the very thing bringing them their happiness was the thing which in
Ruth put her apart from her friends; she would be larger, more tender,
than those others. He wanted that triumph for her over them. He would
glory in it so! There would be such pride in showing Amy to Ruth as a
woman who was real. And most of all, because it was a thing so deep in
his own life, he wanted Amy to come within, to know from within, his
feeling about Ruth.

"You know, dear, that was Ruth's old crowd you were meeting this
afternoon," he finally said.

He saw her instantly stiffen. Her mouth looked actually hard. That, he
quickly told himself, was what those people had done to her.

"And that house," he went on, his voice remaining quiet, "was like
another home to Ruth."

Amy cleared her throat. "She didn't make a very good return for the
hospitality, do you think?" she asked sharply.

Flushing, he started to reply to that, but instead asked abruptly, "Does
Edith know that Ruth is home?"

"Yes," Amy replied coldly, "they were speaking of her."

"_Speaking_ of her!" he scoffed.