I went moodily to the drawing-room and smoked viciously. I made "rings," and watched them dissolve in the atmosphere. I contrasted what was, with what should be. The scene lacked the placid picture of Letitia reading Cicero beneath the rosy lamplight. Letitia was haranguing a cook and her husband was temporarily forgotten. No wonder that I felt bitter, and brooded over the unsolved enigma known as the "servant question."
When Letitia joined me, she led in the dirty brat by the hand. The juvenile McCaffrey had evidently been washed. There was a line round its neck that showed the limit of the operation. It had a sugar stick in its mouth, which mercifully excluded "Ga-ga!" from utterance. Letitia seemed rather thoughtful, and came up to me gently.
"I'm sorry if I spoke harshly," she said, kissing me, "but—but—things do seem to go so wrong, dear, don't they? I told Mrs. McCaffrey never to touch her child again, and I asked her about her Christian principles."
"Good!" I exclaimed savagely.
"She was rather surprised, and a trifle impertinent, and thought that ladies without children should not offer advice to mothers. From a few remarks that she let drop unconsciously, I couldn't help thinking, Archie, that she has had other children—plenty of them—dozens—"
"Let us hope that they are dead," I said, in the quietude of despair.
"Anyway, they don't matter, do they, as they are not here? Certainly, Archie, I don't see why she shouldn't have had other children. Letitia doesn't look to me like a first-born. She suggests the end of a long scale—the culmination of a series. I don't know why. It doesn't concern us, though. I have offered to take care of the child this evening as Mrs. McCaffrey is going to see a sister who lives in Tremont. I couldn't well refuse, could I? We are not going out."
"Oh, hang it!" I cried. "An evening of 'Ga-ga!' You might have considered me. It is all very well to think so much of Mrs. McCaffrey. But, of course, I haven't a sister in Tremont, and I've got to stay in and face the music."
"Archie! Archie!" Letitia pleaded, "you are getting to be a regular old, discontented, married man. You are beginning to talk to me as though—as though I irritated you, and you couldn't stand me. Oh, dear! I should never, never have thought that merely on account of a cook—"
"Of three cooks!" I insisted.