I had a luxurious afternoon. Katie in the kitchen sang softly over her work some minor-cadenced Polish folk-song, and I nestled deep in an armchair by the sunniest window, dipped deep into the pages of magazines and newspapers which I had not read. I realized with a start that I was out of touch with the doings of the outside world, something which had not happened to me before for years, save in the few awful days of my mother's last illness. I really must catch up again.
I was so deep in a vivid description of the desolation in Belgium that
I did not hear Dicky enter. I started as he kissed me.
"Headache better, sweetheart?" he added, lover-like remembering and making much of the slight headache I had had when he left that morning. "It must be, or you wouldn't be able to read that horror." He closed the magazine playfully and drew me to my feet.
"I am perfectly well," I replied, "and I have good news for you. We have a maid, a trifle rough in her manner, but one who I think will be very good."
"That's fine," Dicky said heartily. "I'd much rather come home to find you comfortably reading than scorching your face and reddening your hands in a kitchen."
"Say, Missis Graham!"
Katie came swiftly into the room, and I heard an exclamation of surprise from Dicky.
"Why, Katie, wherever did you come from?"
But Katie, with a scream of fear, her face white with terror, backed into the kitchen. I heard her opening the door where she had put her hat and cloak, then the slamming of the kitchen door.
I looked at Dicky in amazement. What did it all mean?