And when she hesitated:
“It makes you sleep, you know. I'm going, if I have to ride alone and talk to an imaginary lady beside me.”
She rather imagined that that had been his first idea, modified by his thought of her. She went over and put a wrinkled hand on his arm.
“You look happy, Dick,” she said wistfully.
“I am happy, Aunt Lucy,” he replied, and bending over, kissed her.
On Wednesday he was in a state of alternating high spirits and periods of silence. Even Minnie noticed it.
“Mr. Dick's that queer I hardly know how to take him.” she said to Lucy. “He came back and asked for noodle soup, and he put about all the hardware in the kitchen on him and said he was a knight in armor. And when I took the soup in he didn't eat it.”
It was when he was ready to go out that Lucy's fears were realized. He came in, as always when anything unusual was afoot, to let her look him over. He knew that she waited for him, to give his tie a final pat, to inspect the laundering of his shirt bosom, to pick imaginary threads off his dinner coat.
“Well?” he said, standing before her, “how's this? Art can do no more, Mrs. Crosby.”
“I'll brush your back,” she said, and brought the brush. He stooped to her, according to the little ceremony she had established, and she made little dabs at his speckless back. “There, that's better.”