"Yes?"
"Lavendar—it was efficacious!"
CHAPTER XVI
"The play is my life—next to you," Sam Wright's Sam was saying to his father's tenant. He had left The Top before the two visitors arrived, and as Dr. Lavendar had foreseen, had gone straight to the Stuffed Animal House….
Helena was in a low chair, with David nestling sleepily in her arms; Sam, looking up at her like a young St. John, half sat, half knelt, on the step at her feet. The day had been hot, and evening had brought no coolness; under the sentinel locusts on either side of the porch steps the night was velvet black; but out over the garden there were stars. A faint stirring of the air tilted the open bowls of the evening-primroses, spilling a heavy sweetness into the shadows. The house behind them was dark, for it was too hot for lamps. It was very still and peaceful and commonplace—a woman, a dozing child, and the soft night. Young Sam, so sensitive to moods, had fallen at once into the peace and was content to sit silently at Helena's feet…. Then David broke in upon the tranquillity by remarking, with a sigh, that he must go to bed.
"I heard the clock strike," he said sadly.
"I think you are a very good little boy," Helena declared with admiration.
"Dr. Lavendar said I must," David explained crossly. "You're misbehavious if you don't do what Dr. Lavendar says. Mrs. Richie, is heaven up in the sky?"
"Why, I suppose so," she said hesitating.
"What do they stand on?" David inquired. "There isn't any floor," he insisted doggedly, for she laughed under her breath.