“How absurd. I never considered her particularly. I don’t care for masculine, dictatorial women, on general principles—”
“Oh, nonsense! I tell you you’ve taken a grudge against her, and you want to get rid of it as soon as possible.”
“I suppose I have a right to my opinion,” Belden began hotly, but a wave of remorse surged over him at sight of the other man’s drawn, nervous face.
“Any one would think we had nothing to do but scrap over a trained nurse,” he said lightly. “She’s all you say, I haven’t a doubt, old man, and if she pulls Caddy through, I’ll sing her praises louder than any of you.”
They sat in silence. A burst of laughter from the kitchen-garden startled them, and Belden started up as if to check it.
“Don’t stop ‘em—it’s the servants. Why shouldn’t they laugh?” said Peter quietly. “I’ve been thinking it all over. If Caddy—if—if she doesn’t get well, she doesn’t want a lot of black and all that. It’s bad for the children. And she said the children oughtn’t to grow up without a mother—think of that!”
“I guess that’s all right,” said Belden sadly. “Look at my boy there!”
A slender, stoop-shouldered lad slouched by the long hall-window, his hands in his pockets, an unlighted cigarette in his mouth.
“Well, well, we all have our load!” Peter’s mood had changed utterly, to the other’s astonishment. He seemed gentler, more thoughtful, controlled beyond belief.
“I don’t see why we shouldn’t smoke,” he added, and they lighted cigars.