He was wondering about his sister. Could it really be that she encountered no problems at all? There was a sweetness and a sureness about her that made him doubt such an obvious hypothesis.
“I’ll stay to lunch, Jule, if you’ll ask me,” he began, “because—”
“Of course I will! How nice!” she interrupted.
“—Because it will be my only chance for a while. I’m going back to work with Parkins to-morrow.”
“Oh, I’m glad!” she exclaimed.
“Are you? Why?”
She looked at him rather shyly, frowning a little. “Because,” she said after just an instant, “you have so fine a training it seems a shame to waste it and let houses be built more clumsily by people who haven’t had it.”
Stacey felt grateful for her reply. She might have said: “Because I think you’ll be happier,” or: “Because I think every man ought to do something.” She had their father’s direct way of going straight to the heart of a question, and she was so simple about it that she got no credit for intelligence. What she said always sounded usual.
She went on with her weeding now, and they talked cordially of superficial things.
Junior, back from kindergarten, made himself the centre of conversation during lunch, but afterward Julie sent him away with his nurse, and sat down with Stacey in the living-room.