"Oh, they all go through it," Ethel repeated comfortably. "It'll be my Sylvia next."
"Indeed?" said Philip, who felt no interest in Ethel's Sylvia, but would have thought it unsympathetic not to simulate one.
His conscientious observance of this self-imposed law retarded the course of the consultation a good deal, since everything that either of them said invariably served to remind Ethel of its applicability to one or more of her own children.
"It goes off, once they get other things to think about," Mrs. Hardinge observed optimistically. "Dorothy was quite all right again when we had those nice boys staying here. They had plenty of fun all together, and it quite took her mind off her grievances."
"But why should little chil—should young girls, living at home, have grievances at all?" demanded Philip piteously. "They ought to be as happy as the day is long."
"Of course, our kiddies have everything to make them jolly—and really, I think they know it, at the bottom of their hearts. Dorothy and Sylvia are cheery enough, now, and Janet is only going through a phase. But your Lily—of course it's lonelier for her. And then, she's very affectionate and sensitive, after all—my girls always say she wants bracing—perhaps it rather reacts on her spirits to know that you—that you——"
Ethel called up a fit of coughing to her aid. It was never easy to make a personal remark to Philip Stellenthorpe.
He grew more rigid than ever as the sense of this one was borne in upon him.
"You mean that my own happiness is, naturally, no longer to be found in this life? But my little Lily can know nothing of that," said he in all good faith. "I should never dream of speaking about my grief to her, or allowing it to cloud her spirits."
"I don't see how you can help it," said Ethel bluntly.