"Good! She means to go with him, then?"
"Oh, I'm sure she does," said Lily, surprised. "Cousin Ethel will miss her dreadfully."
"So will someone else, I'm afraid," said Nicholas kindly. "I hoped you were going to have her to stay with you when we were settled in town. I'm afraid it will be lonely for you sometimes, when I'm very busy, as I sometimes am." He looked at her for a moment. "Perhaps we shall be able to put that right later on, eh, Lily?"
She smiled at him.
Such references did not discompose her in the least, and she was placidly glad that Nicholas should so much desire a child. It had pleased and relieved her to find that her husband did not consider the subject of potential babies as improper as she had always supposed it to be.
"But there's another sister, the little one at school. You like her better than Janet, don't you? We can have her to stay with us, I hope. But I shall tell Dorothy that she's let me down, by running off like this to India."
Nicholas laughed heartily.
"All the same, she's a plucky girl. It's no joke for a woman to spend all the best years of her life following the drum. It means bad climates very often, and no fixed home, and perhaps separation from her children—certainly separation from her own people. All that means some pretty big sacrifices."
"Yes." Lily spoke dreamily and with hesitation.
"But you think it would be worth it, eh?"