"She certainly looks ill." The chaplain glanced thoughtfully toward the pantry door, as if he expected to see through it. "Have you had any talk with her, Lucy?"
"I've tried, but I had to do all the talking. She just pulls this little wooden smile—it's just that, Lawrence! it's as if she pulled a string and twitched the corners of her mouth up; there is no smile in her eyes. It's tragic! And all she will say is, 'It is my duty to go to my father; I must go, because it is my duty!' over and over; in fact—" with a petulant outburst—"I seem to have lost my Mary, and got a very beautiful talking doll in exchange—Only dolls do look cheerful," she added, "and they don't cry their eyes out all night."
"Have you heard her crying?" asked John Aymer.
"Heard her? No! But I see her in the morning, don't I? I am not an owl, my dear John!"
"No, my love, certainly not!"
The two men gazed meditatively at each other over their pipes. ("Since my husband must either smoke or fidget," Mrs. Aymer was wont to say, "I prefer to have him smoke; and there shall be no room in my house that he is obliged to fidget in.") But the pipes did not make for peace as usual; the atmosphere of the rose-shaded room was anxious and troubled, reflecting the mood of its little ruler. However things might be with Mary-in-the-kitchen, Lucy-in-the-parlor was not herself this evening. She would knit diligently for a few minutes, then spring up to turn down the lamp, to poke the fire, to straighten an already straight window blind, then plunge at her knitting again, and make the needles fly at a bewildering rate.
"It certainly is an extremely rum start!" said John Aymer thoughtfully. "Makes one feel as if one were living behind the scenes at the ——," he named a popular theatre.
"John Aymer!" The knitting was dropped, and two indignant sapphires burned on the guilty husband. "I don't like to think you are heartless, John," said Lucy; "but sometimes there seems nothing else to think. To make game of a poor girl's misery! Men are—"
"Not at all, my love, not at all! I am as sorry as sorry can be, and you know it. But none the less I cannot help feeling as if I were in a movie. Here are all the materials, black-hearted ruffian, lovely maiden, gallant youth—if that wasn't a movie scene the other night, I never saw one, that's all!— By the way, Larry, what of the gallant youth? How has pet-lamb Pippin been to-day? Or haven't you seen him?"
"Oh, yes, I have seen him. I don't believe he cried last night, but he doesn't look as if he'd slept much for several nights. The boy is as thoroughly upset as the girl." The chaplain stooped to pick up a coal from the hearth; then went on slowly. "On the one hand he is all joy at having found Mary; on the other he is all despair because he thinks he has offended her in some way. How about that, Lucy? They have been good friends up to yesterday, have they?" He looked inquiringly at his sister.