“In a moment.”
He divested himself of his hat and coat, and stood absently trying to warm his hands at the frozen register, and then with a long sigh, prepared to take up this end of the domestic burden with the patient use of habit. He went upstairs with a firm and even step, treading more lightly as he passed the nursery door where the baby was going to sleep under the charge of Katy, the nurse-maid, and entered the room where his wife lay on the lounge in a crimson dressing-gown, a flowered coverlet thrown over her feet, her dark hair lying in rings on the white pillow, and her large, dark eyes turned expectantly toward him. The comfort of the pretty, luxurious room, which gave no hint of this new poverty in its fittings, was eclipsed by the icy chill that was like an opaque atmosphere.
The wind outside hurled itself at the house and shook the shutters.
Atterbury turned up the gas, and then sat down on the couch by his wife and kissed her.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing but that old pain; it will go over if I lie still—it was my only chance if we are to go out to-night. It’s really better now. I promised Mrs. Harrington faithfully this afternoon that we’d come, in spite of the weather. Do you mind?”
“No. Is Harrington home yet?”
“She expects him back this evening. Oh, Jack, Bridget was sent for this morning before the breakfast things were cleared away. She really didn’t want to go off this time, but that mother of hers—! The children were more troublesome than usual, and had to be taken care of. They’re all asleep now but the baby. I sent them off earlier than usual on account of the cold. Katy is no good around the house, and we’ve had such a day! The furnace—”
“I see that it’s out.”
“Both fires were out, but the range is going now. The wind was all wrong. We made up the furnace three times, but I couldn’t remember how to turn the dampers; they never seemed to be the right way. There’s a grate fire in the nursery, though.”