“I’ve done most of it,” Angela said proudly. “I’m some nurse. I always was. And you did talk so. Talk about women! I simply couldn’t let a stranger come pothering. You were very ill, but you soon got better, and Mr. Grant helped me.”
“Yes—I’ve known he was here.” Stephen had thought Grant on guard for Helen and Hugh. He knew better now. He lay for a while very quiet, thinking it over.
“He stayed with you all the time the week we were married. It didn’t take long—getting married doesn’t take long, if you go about it the right way.”
“It takes more than a lifetime sometimes,” Stephen said bitterly.
Angela rubbed his thin hand against her face. “I know, dear,” she said.
“You had a very short honeymoon. Was that on my account?”
“Four days. Yes, you poor child, I wasn’t going to leave you too long.”
Stephen said nothing. He couldn’t—say anything.
“Are you happy?” he asked after a time.
“Me and Horace? Oh! so-so.” But she dimpled and flushed eloquently. “So-so—but our troubles have begun already: servants. Horace’s have all given us notice—the silly old frumps. They don’t like me chattering German all over the house. You English haven’t much sense of humor, and English servants have none. Noah—the butler, his name is Ryder, but I call him ‘Noah,’ he’s been with Horace since the flood—Noah sulked whenever I spoke to him in German, and the housekeeper was rude. Well, I bundled her off lickety-click. Then I began to teach Horace German. He read it well enough, but his accent was awful. So I took him in hand. And last night—after dinner—he’d been singing to me—the sweetest love song ever made—in Germany—don’t you think so? ‘Du bist wie eine Blume, So hold, und schön und rein!’—The head parlor-maid and the cook—and the buttons and all the rest, flounced in and gave notice in a bunch. When this war’s over, I shall send to a woman I know in Hong Kong to send me a boat-load of decent servants. I never had real-servant comfort but once in all my life—and that was in ’Frisco, where every maid we had was a Chinaman.”