"I don't know about that, but very soon, if you're a good girl and don't talk to father too much."
"I won't." Puck's lips snapped as if she were never going to say another word and the nurse went out laughing.
Gregory's hold tightened. He had always thought of Puck as another self, very small and feminine, but still a great part of himself. Now he knew that she was Margaret, too. And something else, beyond them both. She was herself. She was a part of his experience, his reaction, his fate. And yet her own experience, her own reaction, her fate could never be his. Sitting with his arms tight about Puck, who soon fell asleep, Gregory felt the terrible isolation of every living soul. No one could ever reach another. He and Margaret were worlds apart. They had never really touched at all. They had created Puck and Puck was distinctly herself and apart. She would grow up and marry and have children of her own....
Gregory put Puck back on the pillow and tiptoed from the room. Annie was just bringing in the soup. In a few moments he and Margaret were eating, and Margaret was retailing the misfortunes of the Burns family, which had forced pretty Gertrude Burns to take up nursing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
At the end of the week Miss Burns left and in a few days Puck was running about the house as usual. The only reminder that something had changed somewhere in his world, were the advertisements of summer resorts that littered Margaret's desk. The doctor had ordered "bracing air, salt water and everything as unlike the city as possible." So Gregory rented their own bungalow on Long Island to Benson for the summer and tried to be patient with Margaret in her search. She finally decided on a small boarding house in Maine, as far from civilization as she could get, where there were other children for Puck to play with. Margaret did not expect to enjoy the summer and measured her devotion to Puck by the degree of her own discomfort.
Puck was not told until it was necessary to pack Lady Jane's things. Then she was hysterical with excitement at the idea of going "a long, long way on a boat." She invested Maine with all the magic details of Gregory's bed-time stories. But when she found that he was not coming with them, her joy died as suddenly as if it had been turned off with a spigot.
"I don't want to go 'a long, long way on a boat' without my daddy." She squared her shoulders and looked quietly at Margaret.
"But it's too far, dear. Daddy has to stay and work for us and we mustn't tease him."
"I don't want my daddy to stay and work for us."