To find out he resorted to various elaborate round about methods that
did credit to the ingenuity of his mind. But he made at every cunning
cast a barren water-haul. Either she was not thinking of him at all or
what she thought swam too deep for any casts he knew how to make in
those hidden and unfamiliar waters. Or, perhaps she did not herself know
what she thought, being too busy with the baby and the household to have
time for such abstract and not pressing, perhaps not important, matters.
He moved slowly in his inquiries into her state of mind because there
was all the time in the world and no occasion for haste. He moved
cautiously because he wished to do nothing that might disturb the
present serenity of their home life. Did she dislike him? Was she
indifferent? Had she developed a habit of having him about that was in a
way equivalent to liking?
These languid but delightful investigations--not unlike the pastimes one
spins out when one has a long, long lovely summer day with hours on
hours for luxurious happy idling--these investigations were abruptly
suspended by a suddenly compelled trip to Europe. He arranged for
Dorothy to send him a cable every day--"about yourself and the
baby"--and he sent an occasional cabled bulletin about himself in reply.
But neither wrote to the other; their relationship was not of the
letter-exchanging kind--and had no need of pretense at what it was not.
In the third month of his absence, his sister Ursula came over for
dresses, millinery and truly aristocratic society. She had little time
for him, or he for her, but they happened to lunch alone about a week
after his arrival.
"You're looking cross and unhappy," said she. "What's the matter?
Business?"
"No--everything's going well."
"Same thing that's troubling Dorothy, then?"
"Is Dorothy ill?" inquired he, suddenly as alert as he had been absent.
"She hasn't let me know anything about it."
"Ill? Of course not," reassured Ursula. "She's never ill. But--I've not
anywhere or ever seen two people as crazy about each other as you and
she."
"Really?" Norman had relapsed into interest in what he was eating.
"You live all alone down there in the country. You treat anyone who
comes to see you as intruder. And as soon as darling husband goes away,
darling wife wanders about like a damned soul. Honestly, it gave me the
blues to look at her eyes. And I used to think she cared more about the
baby than about you."
"She's probably worried about something else," said Norman. "More salad?
No? There's no dessert--at least I've ordered none. But if you'd like
some strawberries----"
"I thought of that," replied Ursula, not to be deflected. "I mean of her
being upset about something beside you. I'm slow to suspect anyone of
really caring about any _one_ else. But, although she didn't confess, I
soon saw that it was your absence. And she wasn't putting on for my
benefit, either. My maid hears the same thing from all the servants."
"This is pleasant," said Norman in his mocking good-humored way.
"And you're in the same state," she charged with laughing but
sympathetic eyes. "Why, Fred, you're as madly in love with her as ever."
"I wonder," said he reflectively.
"Why didn't you bring her with you?"
He stared at his sister like a man who has just discovered that he, with
incredible stupidity, had overlooked the obvious. "I didn't think I'd
be away long," evaded he.
He saw Ursula off for the Continent, half promised to join her in a few
weeks at Aix. A day or so after her departure he had a violent fit of
blues, was haunted by a vision of the baby and the comfortable, peaceful
house on Long Island. He had expected to stay about two months longer.
"I'm sick of England and of hotels," he said, and closed up his business
and sailed the following week.
* * * * *
She and the baby were at the pier to meet him. He looked for signs of
the mourning Ursula had described, but he looked in vain. Never had he
seen her lovelier, or so sparkling. And how she did talk!--rattling on
and on, with those interesting commonplaces of domestic event--the baby,
the household, the garden, the baby--the horses, the dogs, the
baby--the servants, her new dresses, the baby--and so on, and so on--and
the baby.
But when they got into the motor at Hempstead station for the drive
home, silence fell upon her--he had been almost silent from the start of
the little journey. As the motor swung into the grounds, looking their
most beautiful for his homecoming, an enormous wave of pure delight
began to surge up in him, to swell, to rush, to break, dashing its spray
of tears into his eyes. He turned his head away to hide the too obvious
display of feeling. They went into the house, he carrying the baby. He
gave it to the nurse--and he and she were alone.
"It certainly is good to be home again," he said.
The words were the tamest commonplace. We always speak in the old
stereotyped commonplaces when we speak directly from the heart. His tone
made her glance quickly at him.
"Why, I believe you _are_ glad," said she.
He took her hand. They looked at each other. Suddenly she flung herself
wildly into his arms and clung to him in an agony of joy and fear. "Oh,
I missed you so!" she sobbed. "I missed you so!"
"It was frightful," said he. "It shall never happen again."