“Going—?” Richard caught himself. “Has it come?”
The doctor smiled at him—at the ignorance and youthful credulity of it.
“I shall be back in an hour or two. Everything is going splendidly. Your wife has courage!” And he was gone.
“Courage—Eleanor? Of course she had courage! She was made of it. What did the doctor know about Eleanor’s courage?” He hurried up the stairs... the fleeting sense of life in his quick steps.
She turned to him with the little upward twist of her lip. “It’s all right, Dickie!”
There was no mystery, no courage—only Eleanor’s competent look as if there were dusting to be done, and men-folks were better out of the way.... And yet, behind it, he had a sense that she withdrew to some high place, to a remote, inaccessible cliff, and looked down on him with wide eyes.
He wandered miserably about the house; a part of the night he slept, and part of it he spent at the telephone, sending orders for the doctor and nurse, and answering the door-bell when the response came.... All through the early hours he longed fiercely for the arrival of William Archer. Then, as the night went on, he lost interest in William Archer and his coming, and would have welcomed Annabel.... And he cast aside even the thought of Annabel. He longed only for an end to the misery.... And when at last the doctor said in businesslike tones, “A fine girl, Mr. More!” he only blinked at him, and his tousled hair took on a more rebellious twist.
“A fine girl! What of it!... What had girls to do with this?”
“A fine girl” did not connect herself, in any vague way, with Annabel or with life.... Probably a new girl for the kitchen....! Well, they needed a girl! They needed a dozen girls!
He wandered out miserably—and the doctor followed him with a quick look and something in a glass.