Half a step behind him his White Linen Bride followed softly.
At the edge of the piazza he turned for an instant and eyed her a bit quizzically. With her big credulous blue eyes, and her great mop of yellow hair braided childishly down her back, she looked inestimably more juvenile and innocent than his own little shrewd-faced six-year-old whom he had just left domestically ensconced in the middle of the broad gravel path.
"For Heaven's sake, Miss Malgregor," he asked. "For Heaven's sake—why didn't you tell me that the Wall Paper Man was your—brother?"
Very contritely the White Linen Nurse's chin went burrowing down into the soft collar of her dress and as bashfully as a child one finger came stealing up to the edge of her red, red lips.
"I was afraid you'd think I was—cheeky—having any of my family come and live with us—so soon," she murmured almost inaudibly.
"Well, what did you think I'd think you were—if he wasn't your brother?" asked the Senior Surgeon sardonically.
"Very—economical, I hoped!" beamed the White Linen Nurse.
"All the same!" snapped the Senior Surgeon, with an irrelevance surprising even to himself. "All the same do you think it sounds quite right and proper for a child to call her—step-mother—'Peach'?"
Again the White Linen Nurse's chin went burrowing down into the soft collar of her dress. "I don't suppose it is—usual," she admitted reluctantly. "The children next door, I notice, call theirs—'Cross-Patch.'"
With a gesture of impatience the Senior Surgeon proceeded up the steps,—yanked open the old-fashioned shuttered door, and burst quite breathlessly and unprepared upon his most amazingly reconstructed house. All in one single second chintzes,—muslins,—pale blonde maples,—riotous canary birds,—stormed revolutionary upon his outraged eyes. Reeling back utterly aghast before the sight, he stood there staring dumbly for an instant at what he considered,—and rightly too,—the absolute wreck of his black walnut home.