“What do you think, Bob?” asked Phœbe’s father.
Uncle Bob shrugged. “How can I judge Helen’s feelings?” he answered, with a trace of bitterness. “I have no child.”
“Oh, I understand you, Bob,” retorted his eldest brother, angrily. “But you know”—significantly—“there are occasions not proper for a child.”
Phœbe did not understand what Uncle John meant. Evidently her father did; furthermore, it seemed to decide him. “Give me a message for Mother,” he said to Phœbe, and drew her to him.
She took her disappointment bravely. “Tell her I love her, Daddy. And tell her to come back to me.” Then, imploringly, “Oh, promise you’ll bring my mother back!”
“I will bring her back, darling,” he promised. “When Mother is better, we’ll all try to be happy again—for your sake.” He kissed her, turned, kissed his mother, took up the suit-case, and was gone.
Uncle Bob followed. In one hand he had a roll of bills that Uncle John had given him; with the other he searched a trouser pocket.
When the door shut behind Uncle Bob, Phœbe sat down, not helplessly, but she felt a trifle weak, as if some sort of a prop had been taken out from under her.
Her Uncle John was suddenly anxious. “Now, you won’t cry, will you, my child?” he asked.
“Cry?” she repeated, with a touch of pride. “Oh, no. I’m just saying to myself, over and over, ‘Daddy isn’t divorced from my mother. And he’ll bring her back! He’ll bring her back!’ That makes me so happy.” She gulped. Tears swam in the gray-blue eyes, but she smiled through them. The happiest thought of all she could not mention: that she might now dismiss forever the possibility of having a step-mother! She would have her own mother again, and the dear New York home, and her father, and Sally, the maid, yes, and the goldfish, and—the “movies”! “I—I wish I had my old doll,” she added, aloud, but as if to herself.