As a matter of fact, there were other houses closer-by that would have afforded shelter, and it was at least partly from preference that he chose this one. He had not regained his old warm affection for Phil and Catherine, but their society was like a temporary balm applied to his fevered restless mind. No touch of greed was in them. They were, Stacey concluded, hardly human.
Phil had not yet returned from the office, but Catherine was at home with her two sons—Carter, now nine years old, and Jack, who was seven.
She welcomed him with her pleasant smile, that was like light shining coolly through an alabaster bowl, but also with characteristic constraint. She was only perfectly at ease with him when Phil, too, was present and less demand for expression was thus put upon her. “Shy,” thought Stacey once again. “Shy as Truth herself!” But he did not mind her shyness; he liked it. Being with Catherine was like bathing in a bottomless pool of clear translucent water. Fancies such as this, resembling those among which he had formerly lived so familiarly, came to him now only when he was with the Blairs. The fact should have revealed to him much that was obscure in himself; but it did not.
There was no constraint in Carter’s and Jack’s greetings.
“Uncle Stacey,” cried Carter immediately, “I got A in arithmetic on my report in New York and A in reading and B-Plus in spelling!”
“Well, that’s good,” said Stacey. “What did you get in conduct?”
Catherine smiled.
“C-Plus,” said Carter in a small voice. But his depression did not last long. “Uncle Stacey,” he exclaimed, “do ‘Fly away, Jack! Fly away, Jill!’ for him.” He pointed to his brother. “I bet he can’t guess the secret! I bet he’ll look all over the room for them!” And Carter grinned a delighted toothless grin.
“H’m!” observed Stacey, obediently making the necessary preparations, “I remember some one else who looked all over the room for them a few years ago.”
“I guess you mean me,” Carter replied. “Well, I guess I did. I guess I was awful stupid maybe.”