“Don’t cry, Sue dear, don’t!” he said soothingly. “She has a good chance—a fine chance, really. These things are mostly resisting power, you know, and grit, and think what a lot of grit Caddy’s got!”
“Oh, I know, I know! Don’t you know when the baby died—that first baby—and s-she was so weak she could hardly speak? ‘Never mind, P-Peter, we’ll have another!’ Oh, dear, she was so pl-plucky, Will! And now to think—”
He choked a little. “I know, I know,” he murmured, “Caddy’s a brick. She always was.”
She sat up, not wholly withdrawing from his arm, and patted her eyes, breathing brokenly. Little gusts of orris floated toward him.
“Where are the children?” she asked, almost herself now.
“They’re here—Peter wants them one minute and sends them away the next. I should send them to grandmother’s, but he won’t hear of it.”
A light step sounded on the stair. The nurse appeared on the lower landing. She was dressed in cool blue gingham; the straps of her white apron marked the firm, broad lines of her bust and shoulder.
“Is this Mrs. Wylie?” she said in her clear, assured voice. “Mrs. Moore would like to see her a moment. Will you come with me?”
“I will come directly,” and Sue gathered together her gloves and hand-bag.
“She’s very good-looking—it’s a pity her hair is so gray,” she breathed in his ear. As the two women stood together a moment on the landing he realized, not for the first time, that Sue was a little too small. But he had never thought her sallow before.