“Thanks, very much, Miss Deering,” he said. “Now, kids!”
Her eyes sought his face, as if to read there the meaning of his crisp, impersonal tone.
“What have I done that you don’t like?” her eyes asked.
“You are not the one,” his heart answered. “You are good and pretty and young, but you are not the one. What you want to see in my face no woman will ever see again!”
II
Blakie had made very careful plans. He had taken a flat near the park. He had engaged a good cook, and a nursery governess who would come every morning to take the children to the school on Riverside Drive where Katherine had started them. It was not the school he would have[Pg 540] chosen, but they could not change every six months.
He had consulted with his doctor about a proper diet for children of their age. He had drawn up a schedule, not too rigid, for their baths, meals, study, and exercise. He had bought roller skates for them to use in the park; he had arranged riding lessons and dancing lessons for them; he had bought them books and toys.
He had furnished a room for each girl. Martha’s was pink—a pink rug, rose-colored curtains, a little lamp with a rose-colored shade, wicker chairs with cushions, a bookcase, a desk, and a rose-colored eider down quilt on the foot of the little white bed. Next to Martha’s room was Renie’s, decorated in blue.
“How does that suit you?” he asked, opening the two doors.
They stood one on each side of him, looking into those bright, cozy little rooms with wide, solemn eyes.