She let that pass, and merely sat there answerless, looking hurt and cold. Dick got up.
“I’ll meet you down town and we’ll finish our shopping. Five o’clock at my office.”
“That’s fine.”
He kissed her, wishing that she did not look so virtuous and hurt, that she would fly at him, get in the wrong somehow, and went out of the house whistling the tunes he had carried over from the night before. Cecily, conscious of a hundred things to do, sat still, and Ellen, passing through the room, looked at her commiseratingly.
“Tired after last night, Mrs. Harrison?”
“A little. Everybody’s much gayer than I am, Ellen. No one else seems to get tired.”
“They don’t all have three children and go to dances.”
“Don’t they? I wonder how they manage. Ellen, I’m going to have every one here to-morrow night for the tree—Mrs. Harrison, my mother and father, Mr. Gerald and Mr. Walter. Then we will carry the children down after the tree is lit.”
“Won’t it be lovely?”
Dorothea ran in, clamoring. The business of the day pressed on Cecily. She lost her over-serious mood of the night before, a little ashamed, as Matthew had understood she would be, that she had let her half-grown thoughts out so freely. Well, Matthew was not like other people.