She gave him a quick glance. "I wonder what you mean by that?"
But Nikolai did not explain. He said instead, "I am sorry you have no children."
She stiffened. Among her friends it had come to be understood that children were best not mentioned to Joan. There was a hidden bruise which time seemed to have left unhealed.
Nikolai, however, chose not to heed the warning of her expression.
"A home without children in it," he added, "seems to us wandering folk only half a home."
Joan stood up, a hand at her throat. "What do you think," she said in a stifled voice, "it seems to us who are not wandering folk?..."
In three questions Stefan Nikolai had discovered about the Blair household all and more than he wanted to know.
CHAPTER XLVII
At that moment there was the sound of a latch-key in the door and Archie came in; a weary, cheerful Archie, not quite so dapper as of old, but rather the better for that, perhaps.