"In case—" began Dr. Cardew.
"No, in any case," said Dodo. "I mean it certainly is going to be a boy. You shall see. What a day for January, is it not? The year has turned, though I hope that doesn't mean it will go bad. I wish you had seen Hughie's face when I told him he wasn't going to have a Bath-chair. He looked like one of Sir Joshua Reynolds' angels with a three weeks' beard, which I shouldn't wonder if he was shaving now, since, as I said, there aren't going to be any Bath-chairs."
"I don't quite follow," said Dr. Cardew politely but desperately.
"I'm sure I don't wonder," said Dodo cordially, "although it's so clear to me. But you see, he's going to propose to my daughter now that it's certain he will be the same man again and not a different one, and no eligible young man ever has a beard. What a good title for a sordid and tragic romance 'Beards and Bath-chairs' would be. Of course Hughie instantly called for a telegraph-form, and when I asked him who he was telegraphing to, he called me an ass, in so many words, or rather so few. After all I had done for him, too! Oh, here's Edith; Dr. Cardew and I have not been listening to your playing, but we're sure it has been lovely. Do you know Dr. Cardew? And it's Mrs. Arbuthnot, or ought I to say 'she's Mrs. Arbuthnot'? Edith, if you don't mind our smoking, Dr. Cardew and I will wait and talk to you for a little, but if you do, we won't."
Edith shook hands so warmly with the doctor, that he felt he must have been an old friend of hers, and that the fact had eluded his memory. But it was only the general zeal which a long musical morning gave her.
"I'm sure you came to see our poor Hugh," she said. "Do tell me, is there the slightest chance of his ever walking again?"
"Not the smallest," said Dodo; "I've just been to break the news to him, and he has telegraphed to Nadine to come at once—I can't keep it up. Edith, he is going to be perfectly well again, and he has telegraphed to Nadine just the same."
Edith looked a little disappointed.
"Then I suppose we must resign ourselves to a perfectly conventional and Philistine ending," she said. "There was all the makings of a twentieth century tragedy about the situation, and now I am afraid it is going to tail off and be domestic and happy and utterly inartistic. I had better hopes for Nadine, she always looked as if there might be some wild destiny in store for her, and when she engaged herself to Seymour without caring two straws for him, I thought I heard a great fate knocking at the door—"
This was too gross an inconsistency for even Dodo to pass over.