A little later she took him out upon the sidewalk, after swathing him from head to foot in a light-blue veil that floated about her like a strip of sky. It was here that Juliet Galt found her, as she was passing, and, throwing back her pretty head, she laughed until the tears came.
"O Eugie, Eugie, if you had six!" she gasped.
Eugenia flinched slightly at her merriment. "But, Juliet, I can't trust him with a nurse. Why, you told me only the other day that your faithful old Fanny called Elizabeth an 'imp of Satan.'"
Juliet only wrung her hands and laughed the more. "It's too funny," she panted at last; "but I'm sure if Fanny said it about Elizabeth it was true—she never tells stories." Then she rippled off again. "Oh, my poor Dudley! How does he endure it? Why, Ben would ship the babies off to boarding school if I attempted this."
"Dudley tries to be good about it," replied Eugenia, "but he hates it awfully."
Juliet went by, and Eugenia kept up her slow promenade until Dudley came up to dinner. Then she followed him into the house and upstairs to her room, where he turned upon her reproachfully:
"I say, Eugie, I wish you'd stop this sort of thing. It isn't fair to me, you know."
"How absurd, Dudley!"
"But it isn't. People will begin to say that I'm bankrupt or a beast. If you will go parading round like this, for heaven's sake hire a servant or two to follow after; it'll look more decent."
Eugenia's response was far from satisfactory, and the next morning, before going to his office, he drew Miss Chris aside and unburdened himself into her sympathetic ear. "You don't think Eugie's a—a—exactly crazy, do you, Aunt Chris?" he wound up with, for Miss Chris was on his side, and he knew it.