"There is."
"And is it pineapple? Answer me!"
"I rather think I did make pineapple."
"What's the matter with my logic, now?"
Martha laughed and picked up the mending. "It's not the same thing at all, but you'll only talk me down anyhow. So go and get the sherbet. I believe I'll have some, too."
While they ate it Martha talked of Pat and the children and for some reason Jean felt that life was safe and sure again. There could be nothing very terrible in a world where little children said the delightful things that Pat's babies did, where women like Mary kept their belief and enthusiasm undimmed, and the Marthas thoughtfully made pineapple mousse as a surprise.
Four weeks to the day, Gregory wired that he would be back and to keep Sunday for a walk. The world was a nice place, a very nice place, indeed.
Sunday was a day of blue haze and golden sun.
"It was made expressly for us; I ordered it," Gregory declared, as he and Jean swung along, under arching maples that were just beginning to turn crimson, with here and there a brilliant scarlet leaf among the green. The fences were buried under honeysuckle and wild blackberries. The summer was passing in one last passionate abandonment of giving. The bare brown earth, freed from the burden of crops, like a woman released from family cares, went back to its youth. The air was pungent with the sting of sun-warmed loam. The old world frolicked in a second love.
Gregory felt that he was physically leaving the dismal month through which he had just passed, behind him. He strode along and knew in every nerve that Jean was there beside him, just as strong and unwearying as he, stepping step for step with him. He had thought of her so, very often in the last four weeks, even when he was wading out into the breakers with Puck perched on his shoulders, beating his chest with her small, hard heels and shrieking with delight.