Ariadne grew well with the miraculous rapidity of children, and when Paul came back was almost herself again, if a little thinner.
It was upon Lydia that Paul’s eyes fastened, Lydia very white, her face almost translucent, her starry eyes contradicting the tremor of her lips. He drew her to him, crying out: “Why, Lydia darling, you look as though you’d been drawn through a knot-hole! This has been enough sight harder on you than on the baby! What in the world wore you out so? I thought you had two nurses!”
He looked closely into her face, seeing more changes: “Why, you poor, poor, poor thing!” he said compassionately. “You look positively years older.”
“Oh, I am that,” she told him, seeming to speak, oddly enough, he thought, exultantly.
“You just shouldn’t allow yourself to get so wrought up over Ariadne,” he expostulated affectionately. “You’ll wear yourself out! What earthly good did it do the baby? Sickness is a matter for professionals, I tell you what! You had the two nurses and your precious old Dr. Melton that you swear by! What more could be done? That’s the reason I didn’t come back. I knew well enough that there wasn’t an earthly thing I could do to help.”
Lydia looked at him so strangely that he noticed it. “Oh, of course I could have been company for you. But that was the only thing! Getting the baby well was the business of the hour, wasn’t it now? And the doctor and nurses were looking out for that. Besides, you had ’Stashie to wait on you.”
“Yes; I had ’Stashie,” admitted Lydia.
Paul perceived uneasily some enigmatic quality in her quiet answer, and went on reasonably: “Now, Lydia, don’t go making yourself out a martyr because I didn’t come back. You know I’d have come if there was anything to be done! I’d have come from the ends of the earth to help you nurse her if we’d had to do that! But, thank the Lord, I make enough money so we could do better by the little tad than that!”
“Suppose I had gone to the theater that night,” asked Lydia slowly. “There was nothing I could do here.”
Paul was justifiably aggrieved. “Good Lord, Lydia! I wasn’t off amusing myself! I was doing business!”