“The water hasn’t frozen in the pipes, I hope?”
There was an ominous sound in his voice.
She nodded speechlessly, and looked at him, her eyes large with unshed tears.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He rose for action. “You should have sent for the plumber at once.”
“There wasn’t anyone to send, and it was so late when I found it out; he wouldn’t have come until to-morrow, anyway.”
There was a certain look in his wife’s face at times which filled Atterbury with extreme tenderness. In the seven years of their wedded life she had explained to him every varying grade of emotion which the sight of him caused her, but there were many things which he had never thought of telling her, or even consciously formulating to himself. He went over to the closet, poured out some cordial in a small glass and brought it to her to drink, watching narrowly until a faint tinge of color relieved the bluish pallor around her mouth. Then he poured out another small glass for himself, and spread the down coverlet more closely over her, frustrating her evident desire to rise.
“You lie still.” He passed a heavy, affectionate hand over her forehead, and she rested her cheek against it with a passionate helplessness. “What on earth did you want to do all the work for, to-day? Why didn’t you get the McCaffrey woman? You’ve no business to tire yourself out like this, Agnes. I don’t see how you’re ever going out this evening!”
“Oh, I can go, I’m so much better now. I thought—I know that we have so little money—I wanted to economize; other women seem to do such things without any trouble at all.”
“Well, we won’t economize that way. Always get what help is necessary.” He spoke with the quick, matter-of-fact decision of a man used to affairs, temporarily regardless of the financial situation, whose cramping iron restrictions could be felt at every turn. “I’ll go down now and start things up!”
“Your dinner is in the oven. I’ll send Katy to you as soon as Herbert is asleep. She can’t leave him now, for he crawls over the crib and drops out.”