"I'll see you to-morrow, Rod," he said. "Good night. Pleasant dreams to both of you."
The house was strange to Rod. He knew, of course, the street and number, but nothing more of the place where Mary had made her home for more than two years. He followed her into a living room where a fireplace glowed cheerfully, a simple, comfortable room. And they stood in the middle of it for a few seconds with their arms about each other, careless of their damp clothes, of Mary's hat tilted askew, of all but the fact that they were together after being long apart.
"Did you miss me?"
"Are you glad to be home?"
Needless questions. Fond and foolish questions. They laughed and stood apart, threw off their heavy coats.
"Kid's asleep, of course," Rod said.
"Yes. Come, look."
She drew him through a short passage into a bedroom. A small tousled brown head rested on a pillow. One hand clutched a dilapidated woolly dog with luminous glass eyes, the other was thrown straight out on the white counterpane, the chubby fingers relaxed.
"How the little beggar has grown," Rod whispered. "He looks like you, Mary."
"Everybody says he's a perfect Norquay," she replied demurely. "So there you are."