“I hope I am not to be fastened in!” I said.
He looked back squarely enough, but somehow I knew he lied.
“Certainly not,” he replied, and opened the door.
If there had been mystery outside, and bareness, the nursery was charming—a corner room with many windows, hung with the simplest of nursery papers and full of glass-doored closets filled with orderly rows of toys. In one corner a small single bed had been added without spoiling the room. The window-sills were full of flowering plants. There was a bowl of goldfish on a stand, and a tiny dwarf parrot in a cage was covered against the night air by a bright afghan. A white-tiled bathroom connected with this room and also with the night nursery beyond.
Mr. Reed did not come in, I had an uneasy feeling, however, that he was just beyond the door. The children were not asleep. Mrs. Reed left me to let me put on my uniform. When she came back her face was troubled.
“They are not sleeping well,” she complained. “I suppose it comes from having no exercise. They are always excited.”
“I’ll take their temperatures,” I said. “Sometimes a tepid bath and a cup of hot milk will make them sleep.”
The two little boys were wide awake. They sat up to look at me and both spoke at once.
“Can you tell fairy tales out of your head?”
“Did you see Chang?”