Of course I didn’t mind. Anything to make him happy, and to keep with him. I was mortally afraid he would get like those silly nurses, and send me out of the house.
At last, the great day came, and master and I took the car out to the hospital. Mistress all wrapped up and veiled, and baby and nurse got into it, and we tooted back to the city.
Master had warned the maids that mistress had got very thin and nervous, and they must be extra gentle and quiet in their manner with her. They were lovely to her face, but they almost cried in the kitchen over her changed looks.
“Oh! dear,” whimpered cook, “ain’t she the holy fright—the darlin’ thing,” and Annie said something even worse. However, from that day on, they never criticised her as sharply as they had before. The baby had brought a new spirit into the house.
My dear master still thought his wife was beautiful, and I could see that he was perfectly terrified, lest she should eat too many sweets and get fat again. He offered her a diamond necklace, if she would stop eating chocolates, and he watched her at the table, and coaxed her not to touch any puddings that had a rich sauce.
One day, he found a little bit of brown paste on her upper lip. “Dearest,” he said anxiously, “have you been eating chocolates?”
She blushed like a naughty child. “Just one,” she said; “nurse had some. But I won’t do it again,” she went on shaking her head, “I’m really anxious to please you, Rudolph.”
He kissed her quite warmly for him, and pushing the table away, sat down quite close beside her, and began to read.
I was delighted that she liked to have him read to her now, but it made a great difference to me. She used to watch the clock with cunning eyes, and get more and more interested in what he was reading, the later the evening grew. Sometimes, she asked a question which did not exactly fit in, for example when he was declaiming about the war in Poland, and she said, “I always did dislike Spaniards.”
He laid down his book. “I said nothing about Spaniards, my dear.”