I sincerely liked and admired Miss Sonnot. My brother-cousin had been the only man in my life until d.i.c.ky 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 pa.s.sport 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. d.i.c.ky'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 appet.i.te.

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

Our evenings away from home together did not average one a week. And d.i.c.ky 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!" d.i.c.ky 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, p.r.o.nto."

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 d.i.c.ky; 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 d.i.c.ky's.

I saw that she longed to do some little personal service for her boy, and willingly handed them over.

d.i.c.ky 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. n.o.body 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. d.i.c.ky'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 d.i.c.ky'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, d.i.c.ky 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 d.i.c.ky'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 d.i.c.ky adversely. He seemed a bit distrait, displayed a trifle of his earlier irritability, and complained a great deal about the warmth of the apartment.