Chapter VI: Part 6

"Then came the crash. Dicky came in one Sunday afternoon and I saw at once that he was really ill. You know his carelessness. He had let a cold go until he was as near pneumonia as he could well be. A sleet storm was raging outside, and when Dicky, after shivering before the fire, started to go back to his studio, Will's mother, who liked Dicky immensely, joined with me in insisting that he must not go out at all, but to bed. Dicky was really too ill to care what we did with him, so we got him into bed, and I took care of him for two or three days until he was well enough to leave.

"Of course, the greater part of his care fell on me, for Will's mother was old and not strong. I am not going to tell you the accusations which my unspeakable husband made against me, or the affidavits which the maid was bribed to sign about Dicky and me. You can guess. Worst of all, Will's mother turned against me, not because of anything she had observed, but simply because her son told her I was guilty.

"'I never would have thought it of you, Lillian,' she said to me with the tears streaming down her wrinkled, old face. 'I never saw anything out of the way, but of course Will wouldn't lie. And I loved you so.'

"Poor old woman. Those last few words of affection made it easier for me to give the baby up to her when the time came. She idolizes Marion. She gives her the best of care, and I do not think she will teach her to hate me as Will would.

"But there has never been a moment since I kissed Marion and gave her into the arms of her grandmother that I have not known exactly how she was treated," she said. "I have made it my business to know, and I have paid liberally for the knowledge. You see, about the time of the divorce Mr. Morten had a legacy left him, so that life has been easy for him financially. His mother had always kept a maid. Every servant she has had has been in my employ. There has scarcely been a day since I lost my baby that from some unobserved place I have not seen her in her walks. I know every line of her face, every curve of her body, every trick of movement and expression. I shall know how to win her love when the time comes, never fear."

Her voice was dauntless, but her face mirrored the anguish that must be her daily companion.

One thing about her recital jarred upon me. This paying of servants, this furtive espionage was not in keeping with the high resolve that had led the mother to "keep her word" to the man who had ruined her life. And yet--and yet--I dared not judge her. In her place I could not imagine what I would have done.

One thing I knew. Never again would I doubt Lillian Underwood. The ghost of the past romance between my husband and the woman before me was laid for all time, never to trouble me again. Remembering the sacrifice she had made for Dicky, considering the gallant fight against circumstances she had waged since her girlhood, I felt suddenly unworthy of the friendship she had so warmly offered me.

I turned to her, trying to find words, which should fittingly express my sentiments, but she forestalled me with a kaleidoscopic change of manner that bewildered me.

"Enough of horrors," she said, springing up and giving a little expressive shake of her shoulders as if she were throwing a weight from them. "I'm going to give you some luncheon."

"Oh, please!" I put up a protesting hand, but she was across the room and pressing a bell before I could stop her.

I thought I understood. The grave of her past life was closed again. She had opened it because she wished me to know the truth concerning the old garbled stories about herself and Dicky. Having told me everything, she had pushed the grisly thing back into its sepulchre again and had sealed it. She would not refer to it again.

One thing puzzled me, something to which she had not referred--why had she married Harry Underwood? Why, after the terrible experience of her first marriage, had she risked linking her life with an unstable creature like the man who was now her husband?

I put all questionings aside, however, and tried to meet her brave, gay mood.

XX

LITTLE MISS SONNOT'S OPPORTUNITY

My mother-in-law's convalescence was as rapid as the progress of her sudden illness had been. By the day that I gave my first history lecture before the Lotus Study Club she was well enough to dismiss Dr. Pettit with, one of her sudden imperious speeches, and to make plans that evening for the welcoming and entertaining of her daughter Harriet and her famous son-in-law Dr. Edwin Braithwaite, who were expected next day on their way to Europe, where Doctor was to take charge of a French hospital at the front.

That night I could not sleep. The exciting combination of happenings effectually robbed me of rest. I tried every device I could think of to go to sleep, but could not lose myself in even a doze. Finally, in despair, I rose cautiously, not to awaken Dicky, and slipping on my bathrobe and fur-trimmed mules, made my way into the dining-room.

Turning on the light, I looked around for something to read until I should get sleepy.

"What is the matter, Mrs. Graham? Are you ill?"

Miss Sonnet's soft, voice sounded just behind me. As I turned I thought again, as I had many times before, how very attractive the little nurse was. She had on a dark blue negligee of rough cloth, made very simply, but which covered her night attire completely, while her feet, almost as small as a child's, were covered with fur-trimmed slippers of the same color as the negligee. Her abundant hair was braided in two plaits and hung down to her waist.

"You look like a sleepy little girl," I said impulsively.

"And you like a particularly wakeful one," she returned, mischievously. "I am glad you are not ill. I feared you were when I heard you snap on the light."

"No, you did not waken me. In fact, I have been awake nearly an hour. I was just about to come out and rob the larder of a cracker and a sip of milk in the hope that I might go to sleep again when I heard you."

"Splendid!" I ejaculated, while Miss Sonnot looked at me wonderingly. "Can your patient hear us out here?"

"If you could hear her snore you would be sure she could not," Miss Sonnot smiled. "And I partly closed her door when I left. She is safe for hours."

"Then we will have a party," I declared triumphantly, "a regular boarding school party."

"Then on to the kitchen!" She raised one of her long braids of hair and waved it like a banner. We giggled like fifteen-year-old school girls as we tiptoed our way into the kitchen, turned on the light and searched refrigerator, pantry, bread and cake boxes for food.

"Now for our plunder," I said, as we rapidly inventoried the eatables we had found. Bread, butter, a can of sardines, eggs, sliced bacon and a dish of stewed tomatoes.

"I wish we had some oysters or cheese; then we could stir up something in the chafing dish," I said mournfully.

"Do you know, I believe I have a chafing dish recipe we can use in a scrap book which I always carry with me," responded Miss Sonnot. "It is in my suit case at the foot of my couch. I'll be back in a minute."

She noiselessly slipped into the living room and returned almost instantly with a substantially bound book in her hands. She sat down beside me at the table and opened the book.

"I couldn't live without this book," she said extravagantly. "In it I have all sorts of treasured clippings and jottings. The things I need most I have pasted in. The chafing dish recipes are in an envelope. I just happened to have them along."

She was turning the pages as she spoke. On one page, which she passed by more hurriedly than the others, were a number of Kodak pictures. I caught a flash of one which made my heart beat more quickly. Surely I had a print from the same negative in my trunk.

The tiny picture was a photograph of Jack Bickett or I was very much mistaken.

What was it doing in the scrap book of Miss Sonnot?

I put an unsteady hand out to prevent her turning the page.

It was Jack Bickett's photograph. I schooled my voice to a sort of careless surprise:

"Why! Isn't this Jack Bickett?"

She started perceptibly. "Yes. Do you know him?"

"He is the nearest relative I have," I returned quickly, "a distant cousin, but brought up as my brother."

Her face flushed. Her eyes shone with interest.

"Oh! then you must be his Margaret?" she cried.

As the words left Miss Sonnot's lips she gazed at me with a half-frightened little air as if she regretted their utterance.

"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Graham," she said contritely; "you must think I have taken leave of my senses. But I have heard so much about you."

"From Mr. Bickett?" My head was whirling. I had never heard Jack speak the name of "Sonnot." Indeed, I would never have known he had met her, save for the accidental opening of her scrap book to his picture when she and I were searching for chafing dish recipes.

"Oh! No, indeed. I have never seen Mr. Bickett myself."

A rosy embarrassed flush stole over her face as she spoke. Her eyes were starry. Through my bewilderment came a thought which I voiced.

"That is his loss then. He would think so if he could see you now."

She laughed confusedly while the rosy tint of her cheeks deepened.

"I must explain to you," she said simply. "I have never seen Mr. Bickett, but my brother is one of his friends. They used to correspond, and I enjoyed his letters as much as Mark did. I think his is a wonderful personality, don't you?"

"Naturally," I returned, a trifle dryly. The little nurse was revealing more than she dreamed. There was romantic admiration in every note in her voice. I was not quite sure that I liked it.

But I put all selfish considerations down with an iron hand and smiled in most friendly fashion at her.

"Isn't it wonderful that after hearing so much of each other we should meet in this way?" I said heartily. "If only our brothers were here."

Miss Sonnet's face brightened again. "Is Mr. Bickett in this country? " she asked, her voice carefully nonchalant. "I have not heard anything about him for two or three years."

"He sailed for France a week ago," I answered slowly. "He intends to join the French engineering corps."

There was a long moment of silence. Then Miss Sonnot spoke slowly, and there was a note almost of reverence in her voice.

"That is just what he would do," and then, impetuously, "how I envy him!"

"Envy him?" I repeated incredulously.

"Yes, indeed." Her voice was militant, her eyes shining, her face aglow. "How I wish I were a man ever since this war started! I am just waiting for a good chance to join a hospital unit, but I do not happen to know any surgeon who has gone, and of course they all pick their own nurses. But my chance will come. I am sure of it, and then I am going to do my part. Why! my great-grandfather was an officer in Napoleon's army. I feel ashamed not to be over there."

* * * * *

I saw very little of Dicky's sister and her husband during the week they spent in New York before sailing for France. True, Harriet spent some portion of every day with her mother, but she ate at our table only once, always hurrying back to the hotel to oversee the menu of her beloved Edwin.

Reasoning that in a similar situation I should not care for the presence of an outsider, I left the mother and daughter alone together as much as I could without appearing rude. I think they both, appreciated my action, although, with their customary reserve, they said very little to me.

Dr. Braithwaite came twice during the week to see us, each time making a hurried call. Harriet appeared to wish to impress us with the importance of these visits from so busy and distinguished a man. But the noted surgeon himself was simple and unaffected in his manner.

One thing troubled me. I had done nothing, said nothing to further Miss Sonnot's desire to go to France as a nurse. She had left us the day after Dicky's sister and brother-in-law arrived, left with the admiration and good wishes of us all. The big surgeon himself, after watching her attention to his mother-in-law upon the day of arrival, made an approving comment.

"Good nurse, that," he had said. I took the first opportunity to repeat his words to the little nurse, who flushed with pleasure. I knew that I ought to at least inquire of the big surgeon or his wife about the number of nurses he was taking with him, but there seemed no fitting opportunity, and--I did not make one.

I did not try to explain to myself the curious disinclination I felt to lift a hand toward the sending of Miss Sonnot to the French hospitals. But every time I thought of the night she had told me of her wish I felt guilty.

Jack was already "somewhere in France." If Miss Sonnot entered the hospital service, there was a possibility that they might meet.

I sincerely liked and admired Miss Sonnot. My brother-cousin had been the only man in my life until Dicky swept me off my feet with his tempestuous wooing. My heart ought to have leaped at the prospect of their meeting and its possible result. But I felt unaccountably depressed at the idea, instead.

The last day of the Braithwaites' stay Harriet came unusually early to see her mother.

"I can stay only a few minutes this morning, mother," she explained, as she took off her heavy coat. "I know," in answer to the older woman's startled protest. "It is awful this last day, too. I'll come back toward night, but I must get back to Edwin this morning. He is so annoyed. One of his nurses has fallen ill at the last moment and cannot go. He has to secure another good one immediately, that he may get her passport attended to in time for tomorrow's sailing. And he will not have one unless he interviews her himself. I left him eating his breakfast and getting ready to receive a flock of them sent him by some physicians he knows. I must hurry back to help him through."

Miss Sonnet's opportunity had come! I knew it, knew also that I must speak to my sister-in-law at once about her. But she had finished her flying little visit and was putting on her coat before I finally forced myself to broach the subject.

"Mrs. Braithwaite"--to my disgust I found my voice trembling--"I think I ought to tell you that Miss Sonnot, the nurse your mother had, wishes very much to enter the hospital service. She could go tomorrow, I am sure. And I remember your husband spoke approvingly of her."

My sister-in-law rushed past me to the telephone.

"The very thing!" She threw the words over her shoulder as she took down the receiver. "Thank you so much." Then, as she received her connection, she spoke rapidly, enthusiastically.

"Edwin, I have such good news for you. Dicky's wife thinks that little Miss Sonnot who nursed mother could go tomorrow. She said while she was here that she wanted to enter the hospital service. Yes. I thought you'd want her. All right. I'll see to it right away and telephone you. By the way, Edwin, if she can go, you won't need me this forenoon, will you? That's good. I can stay with mother, then. Take care of yourself, dear. Good-by."

She hung up the receiver and turned to me.

"Can you reach her by 'phone right away, and if she can go tell her to go to the Clinton at once and ask for Dr. Braithwaite?"

I paid a mental tribute to my sister-in-law's energy as I in my turn took down the telephone receiver. I realized how much wear and tear she must save her big husband.

"Miss Sonnot!" I could not help being a bit dramatic in my news. "Can you sail for France tomorrow? One of Dr. Braithwaite's nurses is ill, and you may have her place, if you wish."

There was a long minute of silence, and then the little nurse's voice sounded in my ears. It was filled with awe and incredulity.

"If I wish!" and then, after a pregnant pause, "Surely, I can go. Where do I learn the details?"

I gave her full directions and hung up the receiver with a sigh.

She came to see me before she sailed, and after she had left me, I went into my bedroom, locked the door, and let the tears come which I had been forcing back. I did not know what was the matter with me. I felt a little as I did once long before when a cherished doll of my childhood had been broken beyond all possibility of mending. Unreasonable as the feeling was, it was as if a curtain had dropped between me and any part of my life that lay behind me.

XXI

LIFE'S JOG-TROT AND A QUARREL

Life went at a jog-trot with me for a long time after the departure for France of the Braithwaites and Miss Sonnot.

My mother-in-law missed her daughter, Mrs. Braithwaite, sorely. I believe if it had not been for her pride in her brilliant daughter and her famous son-in-law she would have become actually ill with fretting. I found my hands full in devising ways to divert her mind and planning dishes to tempt her delicate appetite.

Because of her frailty and consequent inability to do much sightseeing, or, indeed, to go far from the house, Dicky and I spent a very quiet winter.

Our evenings away from home together did not average one a week. And Dicky very rarely went anywhere without me.

"What a Darby and Joan we are getting to be!" he remarked one night as we sat one on each side of the library table, reading. His mother, as was her custom, had gone to bed early in the evening.

"Yes! Isn't it nice?" I returned, smiling at him.

"Ripping!" Dicky agreed enthusiastically. Then, reflectively, "Funniest thing about it is the way I cotton to this domestic stunt. If anyone had told me before I met you that I should ever stand for this husband-reading-to-knitting-wife sort of thing I should have bought him a ticket to Matteawan, pronto."

He stopped and frowned heavily at me, in mimic disapproval.

"Picture all spoiled," he declared, sighing. "You are not knitting. Why, oh, why are you not knitting?"

"Because I never shall knit," I returned, laughing, "at least not in the evening while you are reading. That sort of thing never did appeal to me. Either the wife who has to knit or sew or darn in the evening is too inefficient to get all her work done in daylight, or she has too much work to do. In the first case, her husband ought to teach her efficiency; in the second place, he ought to help do the sewing or the darning. Then they could both read."

"Listen to the feminist?" carolled Dicky; then with mock severity: "Of course, I am to infer, madam, that my stockings are all properly darned?"

"Your inference is eminently correct," demurely. "Your mother darned them today."

What I had told him was true. His mother had seen me looking over the stockings after they were washed, and had insisted on darning Dicky's. I saw that she longed to do some little personal service for her boy, and willingly handed them over.

Dicky threw back his head and laughed heartily. Then his face sobered, and he came round to my side of the table and sat down on the arm of my chair.

"Speaking of mother," he said, rumpling my hair caressingly, "I want to tell you, sweetheart, that you've made an awful hit with me the way you've taken care of her. Nobody knows better than I how trying she can be, and you've been just as sweet and kind to her as if she were the most tractable person on earth."

He put his arms around me and bent his face to mine.

"Pretty nice and comfy this being married to each other, isn't it?"

"Very nice, indeed," I agreed, nestling closer to him.

My heart echoed the words. In fact, it seemed almost too good to be true, this quiet domestic cove into which our marital bark had drifted. The storms we had weathered seemed far past. Dicky's jealousy of my brother-cousin, Jack Bickett; my unhappiness over Lillian Underwood--those tempestuous days surely were years ago instead of months.

Now Jack was "somewhere in France," and I had a queer little premonition that somewhere, somehow, his path would cross that of Miss Sonnot, the little nurse, who had gone with Dr. Braithwaite's, expedition, and who for years had cherished a romantic ideal of my brother-cousin, although she had never met him.

Lillian Underwood was my sworn friend. With characteristic directness she had cut the Gordian knot of our misunderstanding by telling me, against Dicky's protests, all about the old secret which her past and that of my husband shared. After her story, with all that it revealed of her sacrifice and her fidelity to her own high ideals, there never again would be a doubt of her in my mind. I was proud of her friendship, although, because of my mother-in-law's prejudice against them, Dicky and I could not have the Underwoods at our home.

Our meetings, therefore, were few. But I had an odd little feeling of safety and security whenever I thought of her. I knew if any terrible trouble ever came to me I should fly to her as if she were my sister.

My work at the Lotus Study Club was going along smoothly. At home Katie was so much more satisfactory than the maids I had seen in other establishments that I shut my eyes to many little things about which I knew my mother-in-law would have been most captious.

But my mother-in-law's acerbity was softened by her weakness. We grew quite companionable in the winter days when Dicky's absence at the studio left us together. Altogether I felt that life had been very good to me.

So the winter rolled away, and almost before we knew it the spring days came stealing in from the South, bringing to me their urgent call of brown earth and sprouting things.

I was not the only one who listened to the message of spring. Mother Graham grew restless and used all of her meagre strength in drives to the parks and walks to a nearby square where the crocuses were just beginning to wave their brave greeting to the city.

The warmer days affected Dicky adversely. He seemed a bit distrait, displayed a trifle of his earlier irritability, and complained a great deal about the warmth of the apartment.

"I tell you I can't stand this any longer," he said one particularly warm evening in April, as he sank into a chair, flinging his collar in one direction and his necktie in another. "I'd rather be in the city in August than in these first warm days of spring. What do you say to moving into the country for the summer? Our month is up here the first, anyway, and I am perfectly willing to lose any part of the month's rent if we only can get away."

"But, Dicky," I protested, "unless we board, which I don't think any of us would like to do, how are we going to find a house, to say nothing of getting settled in so short a time?"

To my surprise, Dicky hesitated a moment before answering. Then, flushing, he uttered the words which brought my little castle of contentment grumbling about me and warned me that my marital problems were not yet all solved.

"Why, you see, there won't be any bother about a house. Miss Draper has found a perfectly bully place not far from her sister's home."

"Miss Draper has found a house for us!"

I echoed Dicky's words in blank astonishment. His bit of news was so unexpected, amazement was the only feeling that came to me for a moment or two.

"Well, what's the reason for the awful astonishment?" demanded Dicky, truculently. "You look as if a bomb had exploded in your vicinity."

He expressed my feeling exactly. I knew that Miss Draper had become a fixture in his studio, acting as his secretary as well as his model, and pursuing her art studies under his direction. But his references to her were always so casual and indifferent that for months I had not thought of her at all. And now I found that Dicky had progressed to such a degree of intimacy with her that he not only wished to move to the village which she called home, but had allowed her to select the house in which we were to live.

I might be foolish, overwrought, but all at once I recognized in Dicky's beautiful protégé a distinct menace to my marital happiness. I knew I ought to be most guarded in my reply to my husband, but I am afraid the words of my answer were tipped with the venom of my feeling toward the girl.

"I admit I am astonished," I replied coldly. "You see, I did not know it was the custom in your circle for an artist's model to select a house for his wife and mother. You must give me time to adjust myself to such a bizarre state of things."

I was so furious myself that I did not realize how much my answer would irritate Dicky. He sprang to his feet with an oath and turned on me the old, black angry look that I had not seen for months.

"That's about the meanest slur I ever heard," he shouted. "Just because a girl works as a model every other woman thinks she has the right to cast a stone at her, and put on a how-dare-you-brush-your-skirt-against-mine sort of thing. You worked for a living yourself not so very long ago. I should think you would have a little Christian charity in your heart for any other girl who worked."

"It strikes me that there is a slight difference between the work of a high school instructor in history, a specialist in her subject, and the work of an artist's model," I returned icily. "But, laying all that aside, I should have considered myself guilty of a very grave breach of good taste if I had ventured to select a house for the wife of my principal, unasked and unknown to her."

"Cut out the heroics, and come down to brass tacks," Dicky snarled vulgarly. "Why don't you be honest and say you're jealous of the poor girl? I'll bet, if the truth were known, it isn't only the house she selected you'd balk at. I'll bet you wouldn't want to go to Marvin at all for the summer, regardless that I've spent many a comfortable week in that section, and like it better than any other summer place I know."

Through all my anger at Dicky, my disgust at his coarseness, came the conviction that he had spoken the truth. I was jealous of Grace Draper, there was no use denying the fact to myself, however strenuously I might try to hide the thing from Dicky. I told myself that I hated Marvin because it held this girl, that instead of spending the summer there I wished I might never see the place again.

I was angrier than ever when the knowledge of my own emotion forced itself upon me, angry with myself for being so silly, angry with Dicky for having brought such provocation upon me! I let my speech lash out blindly, not caring what I said:

"You are wrong in one thing--right in another. I am not jealous of Miss Draper. To tell you the truth, I do not care enough about what you do to be jealous of you. But I would not like to live in Marvin for this season--I never counted in my list of friends a woman who possesses neither good breeding nor common sense, and I do not propose to begin with Miss Draper."

Dicky stared at me for a moment, his face dark and distorted with passion. Then, springing to his feet, he picked up his collar and tie and went into his room. Returning with fresh ones, he snatched his hat and stick and rushed to the door. As he slammed it after him I heard another oath, one this time coupled with a reference to me. I sank back in the big chair weak and trembling.

"Well, you have made a mess of it!" My mother-in-law's voice, cool and cynical, sounded behind me. I felt like saying something caustic to her, but there was something in her tones that stopped me. It was not criticism of me she was expressing, rather sympathy. Accustomed as I was to every inflection of her voice, I realized this, and accordingly held my tongue until she had spoken further.

"I'll admit you've had enough to make any woman lose her control of herself," went on Dicky's mother, with the fairness which I had found her invariably to possess in anything big, no matter how petty and fussy she was over trifles. "But you ought to know Richard better than to take that way with him. Give Richard his head and he soon tires of any of the thousand things he proposes doing from time to time. Oppose him, ridicule him, make him angry, and he'll stick to his notion as a dog to a bone."

She turned and walked into her own room again. I sat miserably huddled in the big chair, by turn angry at my husband and remorseful over my own hastiness.

"Vot I do about dinner, Missis Graham?" Katie's voice was subdued, sympathetic and respectful. I realized that she had heard every word of our controversy. The knowledge made my reply curt.

"Keep it warm as long as you can. I will tell you when to serve it."

Katie stalked out, muttering something about the dinner being spoiled, but I paid no heed to her. My thoughts were too busy with conjectures and forebodings of the future to pay any attention to trifles.

The twilight deepened into darkness. I was just nerving myself to summon Katie and tell her to serve dinner when the door opened and Dicky's rapid step crossed the room. He switched on the light, and then coming over to me, lifted me bodily out of my chair.

"Was the poor little girl jealous?" he drawled, with his face pressed close to mine. "Well, she shall never have to be jealous again. We won't live in Marvin, naughty old town, full of beautiful models. We'll just go over to Hackensack or some nice respectable place like that."

At first my heart had leaped with victory. Dicky had come back, and he was not angry. Then as his lips sought mine, and I caught his breath, my victory turned to ashes. The regret or repentance which had driven my husband back to my arms had not come from his heart but from the depths of a whiskey glass.

XXII

AN AMAZING DISCOVERY

It was two days after our quarrel over Grace Draper and her selection of a summer home for us before Dicky again broached the subject of leaving the city for the summer.

"By the way," he said, as carelessly as if the subject had never been a bone of contention between us, "that house I was speaking of the other night; the one Miss Draper thought we would like, has been rented, so we will have to look for something else."

I had no idea how he had managed to get rid of taking the house after his protégé had gone to the trouble of hunting one up, nor did I care. I told myself that as the girl's insolent assurance in selecting a house for me had been put down I could afford to be magnanimous. So I smiled at Dicky and said with an ease which I was far from feeling:

"But there must be other places in Marvin that are desirable. That day we were out there I caught glimpses of streets that must be beautiful in summer."

Into Dicky's eyes flashed a look of tender pleasure that warmed me. Taking advantage of his mother's absorption in her fish he threw me a kiss. I knew that I had pleased him wonderfully by tacitly agreeing to go to Marvin, and that our quarrel was to him as if it had never been. I wish I had his mercurial temperament. Long after I have forgiven a wrong done to me, or an unpleasant experience, the bitter memory of it comes back to torment me.

"That's my bully girl!" was all Dicky said in reply, but when the baked fish had been discussed and we were eating our salad he looked up, his eyes twinkling.

"This green stuff reminds me that if I'm going to get my garden sass planted this year or you want any flower beds, we'll have to get busy. Can you run out to Marvin with me tomorrow morning and look around? We ought to be able to find something we want. Real estate agents are as thick as fleas around that section."

We made an early start the next morning, Mother Graham, with characteristic energy, spurring up Katie with the breakfast, and successfully routing Dicky from the second nap he was bound to take. I had been up since daylight, for it was a perfect spring morning, and I was anxious to be afield.

As we neared the entrance of the Long Island station I thought of the first trip we had taken to Marvin, and the unpleasantness which had marred the day, and I plucked Dicky's sleeve timidly.

"Dicky!" I swallowed hard and stopped short.

He adroitly swung me across the street into the safety of the runway leading down into the station before he spoke.

"Well, what's on your conscience?" He smiled down at me roguishly. "You look as if you were going to confess to a murder at least."

"Not that bad," I smiled faintly. "But oh, Dicky, if I promise to try not to say anything irritating today, will you promise not to, either?"

"Sure as you're born," Dicky returned cheerfully. "Don't want to spoil the day, eh?"

"It's such a heavenly day," I sighed. "I feel as if I couldn't stand it to have anything mar it."

As we sat in the train that bore us to Marvin Dicky outlined some of his plans for the summer.

"There are two or three of the fellows who come down here summers who I know will be glad to go Dutch on a motor boat," he said. "We can take the bulliest trips, way out to deserted sand islands, where the surf is the best ever. We'll take along a tent and spend the night there sometime, or we can stretch out in the boat. Then we must see if we can get hold of some horses. Do you ride? Think of it! We've been married months, and I don't know yet whether you ride or not!"

"No, I don't ride, but oh, how I've always wanted to!" I returned with enthusiasm. Then, with a sudden qualm, "But all that will be terribly expensive, won't it?"

"Not so awful," Dicky said, smiling down at me. "But even if it is, I guess we can stand it. I've had some cracking good orders lately. We'll have one whale of a summer."

My heart beat high with happiness. Surely, with all these plans for me, my husband's thoughts could not be much occupied with his beautiful model. As he lifted me down to the station platform at Marvin I looked with friendliness at the dingy, battered old railroad station which I remembered, at the defiant sign near it which trumpeted in large type, "Don't judge the town by the station," and the winding main street of the village, which, when I had visited Marvin before, Dicky had wished to show me.

Upon that other visit our first sight of Grace Draper and Dicky's interest in her had spoiled the trip for me. I had insisted upon going back without seeing some of the things Dicky had planned to show me, and I had disliked the thought of the town ever since. But with Dicky's loving plans for my happiness dazzling me, I felt a touch of the glamour with which he invested the place in my eyes. I caught at his hand in an unwonted burst of tenderness.

"Let's walk down that old winding street which you told me about last winter," I said. "I've wanted to see it ever since you spoke about it."

"We'll probably motor down it instead," he grinned. "There's a real estate office just opposite here, and I see the agent's flivver in front of the door, where he stands just inside his office. The spider and the fly, eh, Madge? Well, Mr. Spider, here are two dear little flies for you!"

"Oh, Dicky!" I dragged at his arm in protest. "Don't spoil our first view of that street by whirling through it in a car. Let's saunter down it first and then come back to the real estate man."

"You have a gleam of human intelligence, sometimes, don't you?" Dicky inquired banteringly. Then he took my arm to help me across the rough places in the country road.

We had almost reached the door of the office when Dicky caught sight of a plainly dressed woman coming toward us. I heard him catch his breath, his grasp on my arm tightened, and with an indescribable agile movement he fairly bolted into the real estate office, dragging me with him.

"I'll explain later," he said in my ear. "Just follow my lead now."

As he turned to the rotund little real estate agent, who came forward to greet us, a look of surprise on his round face, I looked through the window at the woman from whose sight he had dodged.

Then I felt that I needed an explanation, indeed.

For the woman whose eyes my husband so evidently wished to avoid was Mrs. Gorman, Grace Draper's sister.

* * * * *

So I was to live in a house of Grace Draper's choosing, after all!

This was the thought that came most forcibly to me when Mr. Brennan, the owner of the house Dicky had impetuously decided to rent, told us that Miss Draper had looked over the place for an artist friend, and that she would have taken it only for finding another house nearer her own home.

I was so absorbed in my own thoughts that I did not at first notice Dicky's embarrassment when Mr. Brennan asked him if he knew Grace Draper. It was only when the man, who had all the earmarks of a gossiping countryman, repeated the question, that I realized Dicky's confusion.

"Did you say you knew her?"

"Yes, I know her; she works in my studio," remarked Dicky, shortly.

"Oh!" The exclamation had the effect of a long-drawn whistle. "Then you probably were the artist friend she spoke of."

"I probably was." Dicky's tone was grim. I knew how near his temper was to exploding, and the look which I beheld on the face of Mr. Birdsall, the little real estate agent, galvanized me into action.

"Dear, what do you suppose led Grace to think we would like that other place better than this?" I flashed a tender little smile at Dicky. "Of course we would like to be nearer her, but this is not very far from her home, and it is so much better, isn't it?"

Dicky took the cue without a tremor.

"Why, I suppose she thought you would find this house too big for you to look after," he replied in a matter-of-fact way.

"That was awful dear and thoughtful of her," I murmured, careful to keep my voice at just the right pitch of friendliness toward the absent Grace, "but I don't think this will be too much, for we can shut up the rooms we don't need."

I had the satisfaction of seeing the puzzled looks of Mr. Brennan and Mr. Birdsall change into an evident readjustment of their ideas concerning my husband and Grace Draper. But I did not relax my iron hold upon myself. I knew if I dared let myself down for an instant angry tears would rush to my eyes.

"When did you say we could move in?" I turned to Mr. Brennan, determined to get away from the subject of Grace Draper as quickly as possible.

"Today, if you want it."

"No," returned Dicky, "but we will want it soon. When do you think we can move?" He turned to me.

* * * * *

I spent three busy days at the Brennan place. There was much to be done both inside and outside the house. After the first day, Katie did not return with me, as my mother-in-law needed her in the apartment. But I engaged another woman with the one I had for the work in the house and put the grinning William in charge of an old man I had secured to clean up the grounds and make the garden.

I soon found that I had a treasure in Mr. Jones, who was a typical old Yankee farmer, a wizened little man with chin whiskers. He could only give me a day or two occasionally, as he was old and confided to me that he was subject to "the rheumatics." But while I was there he ploughed and harrowed and planted the garden, cleared the rubbish away, and made me innumerable flower beds, keeping an iron hand over the irresponsible William, whose grin gradually faded as he was forced to do some real work for his day's wages.

A riotous and extravagant hour in a seed and bulb store resulted in my getting all the flower favorites I had loved in my childhood. I also bought the seeds of all vegetables which Dicky and I liked, and a few more, and put them in Mr. Jones's capable hands.

If there was a variety of vegetables or flower seeds which looked attractive in the seedman's catalogue, and which remained unbought, it was the fault of the salesman, for I conscientiously tried to select every one. I planned the location of a few of the beds, and then confided to Mr. Jones the rest of the outdoor work, knowing that he could finish it after my return to the city.

Mr. Birdsall, the agent, was very tractable about the kitchen, sending men the second day to paint it. So at the end of the third day, when I turned the key in the lock of the front door, I was conscious that the house was as clean as soap and water and hard work could make it, that the grounds were in order, and the growing things I loved on their way to greet me.

I fancy it was high time things were accomplished, for in some way I had caught a severe cold. At least that was the way I diagnosed my complaint. My throat seemed swollen, my head ached severely, and each bone and muscle in my body appeared to have its separate pain. When I reached the apartment I felt so ill that I undressed and went to bed at once.

"You must spray your throat immediately," my mother-in-law said in a businesslike way, "and I suppose we ought to send for that jackanapes of a doctor."

Even through my suffering I could not help but smile at my mother-in-law's reference to Dr. Pettit, who had attended her in her illness. She had summarily dismissed him because he had forbidden her to see to the unpacking of her trunks when she was barely convalescent, and we had not seen him since.

"I'm sure I will not need a physician," I said, trying to speak distinctly, although it was an effort for me to articulate. "Wait until Dicky comes, anyway."

For distinct in my mind was a mental picture of the look I had detected in Dr. Pettit's eyes upon the day of his last visit to my mother-in-law. I remembered the way he had clasped my hand in parting. The feeling was indefinable. I scored myself as fanciful and conceited for imagining that there had been anything special in his farewell to me or in the little courtesies he had tendered me during my mother-in-law's illness. But I told myself again, as I had after closing the door upon his last visit, that it were better all around if he did not come again.

"If you wait for Richard, you'll wait a long time," his mother observed grimly. "He called up a while ago, and said he had been invited to an impromptu studio party that he couldn't get away from, and that he would be home in two or three hours. But I know Richard. If he gets interested in anything like that he won't be home until midnight."

I do not pretend either to analyze or excuse the feeling of reckless defiance that seized me upon hearing of Dicky's absence. I reflected bitterly that I had taken all the burden of seeing to the new home, and was suffering from illness contracted because of that work, while Dicky was frolicking at a studio party, with never a thought of me.

I know without being told that Grace Draper was a member of the frolic. And here I was suffering, yet refusing the services of a skilled physician because I fancied there was something in his manner the tolerance of which would savor of disloyalty to Dicky!

I turned to my mother-in-law to tell her she could summon the physician, but found that I could hardly speak. My throat felt as if I were choking.

"The spray!" I gasped.

Thoroughly alarmed, Mother Graham assisted me in spraying my throat with a strong antiseptic solution. Then I gave her the number of Dr. Pettit's office, and she called him up. I heard her tell him to make haste, and then she came back to me. I saw that she was frightened about the condition of my throat, but the choking feeling gave me no time to be frightened. I kept the spray going almost constantly until the physician came. It was the only way I could breathe.

Dr. Pettit must have made a record journey, for the door bell signalled his arrival only a few moments after Mother Graham's message.

He gave my throat one swift, shrewd glance, then turned to his small valise and drew from it a stick, some absorbent cotton and a bottle of dark liquid. With swift, sure movements he prepared a swab, and turned to me.

"Open your mouth again," he said gently, but peremptorily.

I obeyed him, and the antiseptic bathed the swollen tonsils surely and skilfully.

As I swayed, almost staggered, in the spasm of coughing and choking which followed, I felt the strong, sure support of his arm touching my shoulders, of his hand grasping mine.

"Now lie down," he commanded gently, when the paroxysm was over. He drew the covers over me himself, lifted my head and shoulders gently with one hand, while with the other he raised the pillows to the angle he wished. Then he turned to my mother-in-law.

"She has a bad case of tonsilitis, but there is no danger," he said quietly, utterly ignoring her rudeness at the time of his last visit. "I will stay until I have swabbed her throat again. She is to have these pellets," he handed her a bottle of pink tablets, "once every fifteen minutes until she has taken four, then every hour until midnight. Let her sleep all she can and keep her warm. I would like two hot water bags filled, if you please, and a glass of water. She must begin taking these tablets as soon as possible."

As my mother-in-law left the room to get the things he wished, Dr. Pettit came back to the bedside and stood looking down at me.

"Where is your husband?" he asked, a note of sternness in his voice.

I shook my head. I was just nervous and sick enough to feel the question keenly. I could not restrain the foolish tears which rolled slowly down my cheeks.

Dr. Pettit took his handkerchief and wiped them away. Then he said in almost a whisper:

"Poor little girl! How I wish I could bear the pain for you!"

XXIII

"BLUEBEARD'S CLOSET"

My recovery from the attack of tonsilitis, thanks to Dr. Pettit's remedies, was almost as rapid as the seizure had been sudden. My mother-in-law, forgetting her own invalidism, carried out the physician's directions faithfully. The choking sensation in my throat gradually lessened, until by midnight I was able to go to sleep.

I have no idea when Dicky came home from his "impromptu studio party." His mother, whose deftness, efficiency and unexpected tenderness surprised me, arranged a bed for him on the couch in the living room, and I did not hear him come in at all.

"My poor little sweetheart!" This was his greeting the next morning. "If I had only known you were ill the old blow-out could have gone plump. It was a stupid affair, anyway. Had a rotten time."

"It doesn't matter, Dicky," I said wearily, and closed my eyes, pretending to sleep. I knew Dicky was puzzled by my manner, for I could feel him silently watching me for several minutes. Then evidently satisfied that I was really sleeping he tiptoed out of the room, and a little later I heard him depart for his studio, first cautioning his mother to call him if I needed him.

I spent a most miserable day after Dicky had left, in spite of my mother-in-law's tender care and Katie's assiduous attentions. The studio party, of which I was sure Grace Draper was a member, rankled as did anything connected with this student model of Dicky's. The memory of the village gossip concerning her friendship for my husband which I had heard in Marvin troubled me, while even Dicky's solicitude for my illness seemed to my overwrought imagination to be forced, artificial.

His exclamation, "My poor little sweetheart!" did not ring true to me. I felt bitterly that there was more sincerity in Dr. Pettit's low words of the day before: "Poor little girl, I wish I could bear this pain for you!" than in Dicky's protestations.

How genuinely troubled the tall young physician had been! How resentful of Dicky's absence from my bedside! How tender and strong in my paroxysms of choking! I felt a sudden added bitterness toward my husband that the memory of my suffering should have blended with it no recollection of his care, only the tender sympathy of a stranger.

But in two days I was my usual self again, ready for the arduous tasks of moving and settling.

Mother Graham and I spent a hectic day in the furniture and drapery shops, buying things to supplement her furniture and mine, which we had arranged to have sent to the Brennan house in Marvin. I found that her judgment as to values and fabrics was unerring. But her taste as to colors and designs frequently clashed with mine. Save for the fact that she became fatigued before we had finished our shopping, there would have been no individual touch of mine in our home. As it was, I was not sorry that she found herself too indisposed to go with me the second day, so that I had a chance to put something of my own individuality into the new furnishings.

Another two days in Marvin with the aid of a workman unpacking and arranging the crated furniture and our purchases, and the new home was ready to step into.

We were a gay little party as we went together through the house inspecting all the rooms. When we came to Dicky's, he barred us out.

"Now, remember, no stealing of keys and peering into Bluebeard's closet," said Dicky gayly, as he closed and locked the door of his room.

"You flatter yourself, sir." I swept him a low bow. "I really haven't the slightest curiosity about your old room."