I explained to her that I had some most important work to do and imagined all sorts of meetings with publishers. Also a moving-picture gentleman had thrown out dark hints. The atmosphere of the blazing city, I told her, was utterly needed for my new book. All she had to do was to be very patient, grow strong and brown, watch Baby Paul thrive, and await my coming on Saturday afternoons. In the meanwhile I would send her books and magazines, besides a button hook she had forgotten, and a package of the tea we were partial to, and—and a week was an exceedingly short space of time.
So I said good-by and waved my hand at the turning in the road, and returned to the big city, which I could, without much regret, have seen reduced to the condition of Sodom and Gomorrha, since it would have given me a good excuse to take the next train back.
Upon entering my room, I decided that it was a beastly hole. So hateful did it seem that I strolled off into the opposite one. It seemed like a rather sneaking and underhanded thing to do and, I dare say, I had some of the feelings of a burglar. My old piano was there, upon which she played softly and sang exercises that were perfectly beautiful, and songs beyond compare. The very atmosphere of her was still in the place and things of hers were yet on the dressing table, including the button hook, which I pocketed. They made me think of saintly relics to be worshipped. Baby Paul's crib appealed to me. She had so often bent over it, wistfully, as I watched her, admiring the wondrous curve of her neck, the sunlit glory of her hair.
Mrs. Milliken suddenly caught me there, and I felt a sense of heat in my cheeks.
"Yes," she said, "I'll give it a thorough cleaning. It needs it real bad. And next week I'll put new paper on the walls and have the carpet took up and beaten. I was wishin' you'd stay away long enough so I could do the same to yours. I've known all my life men are mussy, but that room of yours is the limit, Mr. Cole, all littered up with paper so a body don't dare touch anything."
I made no answer. I suppose that house cleaning is a necessary evil but her contemplated invasion of Frances's room seems to me like the desecration of a shrine. It should be locked up and penetrated only by people soft of foot and low of voice.
CHAPTER XX
RICHETTI IS PLEASED
Goodness only knows how many pages I blackened with the experiences of this short summer, but I have thrown them away, in small pieces. They were too introspective; mere impressions of one week after another, when I would take the train and join Frances again, under self-suggested and hypocritical pleas. My wisdom was needed to see to it that Baby Paul grew and thrived. His teething necessitated my worrying Dr. Porter half to death as to the possibilities of such portentous happenings. It was also indispensable that I should accurately ascertain the mother's condition of health and listen to Eulalie's observations. In other words, I pretended that I was a very important person.