But in
some indefinable way the room had changed. About it hung an
atmosphere of solid respectability, of impeccable purity that
soothed Mrs. Boyer's ruffled virtue into peace. Is it any wonder
that there is a theory to the effect that things take on the
essential qualities of people who use them, and that we are
haunted by things, not people? That when grandfather's wraith is
seen in his old armchair it is the chair that produces it, while
grandfather himself serenely haunts the shades of some vast
wilderness of departed spirits?
Not that Mrs. Boyer troubled herself about such things. She was
exceedingly orthodox, even in the matter of a hereafter, where
the most orthodox are apt to stretch a point, finding no
attraction whatever in the thing they are asked to believe. Mrs.
Boyer, who would have regarded it as heterodox to substitute any
other instrument for the harp of her expectation, tied on her
gingham apron before Marie Jedlicka's mirror, and thought of
Harmony and of the girls at home.
She told her husband over the supper-table and found him less
shocked than she had expected.
"It's not your affair or mine," he said. "It's Byrne's business."
"Think of the girl!"
"Even if you are right it's rather late, isn't it?"
"You could tell him what you think of him."
Dr. Boyer sighed over a cup of very excellent coffee. Much living
with a representative male had never taught his wife the reserves
among members of the sex masculine.
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