"Not without glasses. Did you go to the oculist's to-day?" Jean sat down on the side of the bed.
"I didn't have time to-day. I'll go to-morrow."
In the shaft of moonlight, Martha looked very small and frail. Jean bent and kissed her. "Please, mummy, don't put it off any longer. You do need them."
"Yes, dear. I'll go to-morrow. I really will. I promise."
It was not often that Jean came and sat on the edge of the bed, and it made Martha happy. She wanted to draw Jean down as if she were a little girl again, only she knew that Jean hated more emotion than the mood called for; so she only patted Jean's hands and smiled.
But to-night Jean would not have objected. She was tired to the point of being glad to feel the worn fingers on her own. For all the way home in the train, back and forth behind the plans for the congress, which the quarrel with Pedloe and Mary's faith had brought sharply to the foreground of her thoughts, had moved the thought of Gregory.
Why had he gone like that? Gone for weeks. What had it to do with the strange mood of the night he had sat so silent, at the window? Why had he looked at her like that when he had said: "Well?" Why had he said so strangely: "No, in that case, I can't."
"You're tired, dear."
"Yes. I guess I am. It's been a busy day and I had one of my periodic fights with Pedloe. Some day he's going to fire me, or I'm going to resign, and he'll be the most astonished thing alive."
"Remember, dear, once you thought this the most wonderful work in the world."