He fancied Eleanor drooped a little as they came into the house; and his mind went out for something to comfort her.... It encountered the Chinese coat.
So, as they sat together in the house that seemed so curiously desolate and different from their usual life together, he told her of the morning he went back to Stewart’s and of his disappointment, and of how he had never quite given up hope that some day Stewart would send for him and tell him to come and get the coat.
She listened with wide, set eyes—almost like a child to a fairy-tale.
“That was very dear of you, Richard!” she said. And she smiled to him, almost as she smiled to the children, and he felt the quick tears in his eyes.
And then suddenly she had thrown herself in his arms.
“Oh, Dick, I am so lonely!” she cried.
And that was the way she came back to him.
After that, although she still guided the children and her hand was on the helm in all decisions, it was to Richard she turned for assurance.
She had come apparently to uncharted waters, and she did not try to make soundings.
And Richard More was as puzzled by her reliance on him as he had been by her wisdom with babies and with life.