“I expect I am!” she laughed, and sidelong caught the direction of his glance. “Of course I oughtn't to wear it in the daytime—it's an evening thing, for the theater—but my day wrist-watch is out of gear. Bobby Lamhorn broke it yesterday; he's a regular rowdy sometimes. Do you want Claus to help you in?”
“Oh no,” said Bibbs. “I'm alive.” And after a fit of panting subsequent to his climbing into the car unaided, he added, “Of course, I have to TELL people!”
“We only got your telegram this morning,” she said, as they began to move rapidly through the “wholesale district” neighboring the station. “Mother said she'd hardly expected you this month.”
“They seemed to be through with me up there in the country,” he explained, gently. “At least they said they were, and they wouldn't keep me any longer, because so many really sick people wanted to get in. They told me to go home—and I didn't have any place else to go. It'll be all right, Edith; I'll sit in the woodshed until after dark every day.”
“Pshaw!” She laughed nervously. “Of course we're all of us glad to have you back.”
“Yes?” he said. “Father?”
“Of course! Didn't he write and tell you to come home?” She did not turn to him with the question. All the while she rode with her face directly forward.
“No,” he said; “father hasn't written.”
She flushed a little. “I expect I ought to've written sometime, or one of the boys—”
“Oh no; that was all right.”