She hoped, a little hurriedly, that Rosa and the cook had been good to him.

"Rosa and the cook?" he cried. "What talk is this of Rosa and the cook? If you are not silent with your domesticities I will kiss you here and now in the middle of the open highroad."

She said she had never really thanked him for letting her go to Zoppot and be there so long.

"Too long, Little One," he interrupted, drawing her closer. "Almost had I forgotten what a dear little wife I possess."

"But I'm going to make up for it all now," she said, "and work harder than I've ever done in my life."

"At making the good Robert happy," he said, pinching her ear.

"And doing things for the children. Dreadful to think of them all this time without me. Were they good?"

"Good as fishes."

"Robert—fishes?"

"They are well, Little One, and happy. That is enough about the children. Tell me rather about you, how you filled up your days."