"Perhaps she's just homesick for a little trouble or illness. Now if Elsie lived in some nice quiet suburb and was going to have one of her horrible babies, or Tom would cut off a leg, she'd pack up and be right there on the dot."
"And you're so disgustingly efficient and healthy! Poor mummy, you were never meant for her daughter. I say, do you suppose she would come over here if I could develop something that doesn't have to show? I couldn't turn pale or faint, not to save me, never did in my life, but I might manage a general breakdown. Worry over the children and Big Frank's raise in salary?"
Jean looked away. "Are you sure it would be all right? She loves the babies and she would come in a minute, if she thought you needed her."
"Well, I do. I'll 'phone her to-morrow."
"She'll come—and thanks, Patsy."
Blurred by the porch screening, a small patient face looked quietly at Jean. Jean got up quickly.
"Let's go inside, Pat. I believe it's cooler."
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Gregory Allen had never intended to let three months pass without telling Jean of his promise to go to Maine. But at first his going had seemed a distant point, and then, as it crept nearer and nearer, the right moment for the telling never came. Now, how could he say: "I am going to Maine to-morrow for a month. I promised Puck when she was ill." He had said nothing of the illness at the time. How drag out his own state of mind on the afternoon he had had tea with Jean and lied to her?
Gregory wished that Jean would say something, almost anything, to break the silence. Not a soul seemed to be alive in the great building about them. On the river occasional excursion steamers turned their dazzling flashlights, lighting the room and Palisades to uncanny, whitish glow. They were huge phantoms moving in the stillness. All the worlds of the universe hung motionless in perfect adjustment. Jean sat utterly at rest, so near him that by the smallest motion he could touch her. But Gregory did not move.