John swept her to his knees and put his cheek against hers for a moment, while tears gleamed in his black eyes.
"Eat your supper and go to bed, Lydia," said Amos.
"Don't be so cross, Amos," protested Levine.
"God knows I'm not cross—to Lydia of all people in the world," sighed Amos, "but she worries over money matters just the way her mother did and I want to finish talking this over with you."
"There's nothing more to talk about," Levine's voice was short. "Let him call in the loan, the fat hog!"
Lydia slept the long night through. She awoke refreshed and renewed. After first adjusting herself to the awful sense of loss, which is the worst of waking in grief, the recollection of the conversation she had heard the night before returned with sickening vividness. After she had wiped the breakfast dishes for Lizzie she stood for a long time at the living-room window with Florence Dombey in her arms staring at the lake. Finally, she tucked the doll up comfortably on the couch and announced to Lizzie that she was going skating.
An hour later, Dave Marshall heard his clerk protesting outside his door and a childish voice saying, "But please, just for a minute. He likes me. He truly does."
Then the door opened and Lydia, breathless and rosy and threadbare, came into his little private office. She closed the door and stood with her back against it, unsmiling.
"I'm in quarantine," she said, "so I won't come near you."
"Why, Lydia!" exclaimed Marshall, "where did you come from!"