[CHAPTER XXII]
UNDER HEAVY STRAIN
“I can’t believe you are real,” said Joe, contentedly, lounging in a big chair and watching Mabel as she flitted about the room, putting small things in order and seeming by her very presence to make the hotel room a home. “I think you must be a dream or something. Come sit down here and let me look at you.”
Mabel sat down beside him and looked at him with dancing eyes.
“I might almost think you were glad to see me, Joe dear,” she said. Then, as Joe moved toward her, added quickly: “Do you know you haven’t asked me a single thing about the home folks yet?”
Joe’s face clouded and he rubbed a hand across his forehead.
“Truth is, I’ve been afraid to,” he confessed. “I have a hunch that neither mother nor Clara has been frank in their letters to me. I’ve been worried sick!” he finished, in an unusual outburst of feeling.
Mabel, studying the new lines about his mouth and the strained look of his eyes, was inclined to be worried herself, though not so much for Mother Matson as for Joe. She said, as cheerfully as she could:
“I wouldn’t worry so dreadfully, Joe, if I were you. Mother’s heart is stronger than it has been for some time and she is wonderfully brave and courageous.”
“She would be,” muttered Joe, adding in swift anxiety: “In the last letter I had from her she said she was in the hospital and the operation was slated to take place in about a week’s time. That would make it somewhere around day after to-morrow. Good heavens! I can’t bear to think of it!”
“You mustn’t, any more than you can help,” said Mabel, gently. “It won’t do Mother Matson or the rest of us any good for you to get down sick yourself, Joe. I wonder Dougherty doesn’t order you off the team for a rest.”