While she was dressing for it, the evening party ceased to be terrible
even in Christian's imagination. She kept thinking over and over the
talk she had had with Dr. Grey; what he had said, and what she had
said, of which she was a little ashamed that her impetuous impulse had
faded. Yet why? Why should she not speak out her heart to her own
husband? It began to be less difficult to do; for, though he did not
answer much, he never misunderstood her, never responded with those
sharp, cold, altogether wide-of-the-mark observations which, in talking
with Miss Gascoigne or Miss Grey, made her feel that they and she
looked at things from points of view as opposite as the poles.

"They can't help that; neither, I am sure, can I," she often thought.
And yet how, thus diverse, they should all live under the same roof
together for months and years to come, was more than Christian could
conceive.

Besides, now, she had at times a new feeling--a wish to have her
husband all to herself. She ceased to need the "shadowy third"--the
invisible barricade against total dual solitude made by aunts or children.
She would have been glad sometimes to send them all away, and spend
a quiet evening hour, such as the last one, alone with Dr. Grey. It was
so pleasant to talk to him--so comfortable. The comfort of it lasted in
her heart all through her elaborate dressing, which was rather more
weariness to her than to most young women of her age.

Letitia assisted thereat--poor Titia who, being sent for, had crept down
to her step-mother's room, very humble and frightened, and received a
few tender, serious words--not many, for the white face was sodden
with crying, and there was a sullen look upon it which not all
Christian's gentleness could chase away. Phillis had discovered her