“Don’t! You know I hate to hear you talk like that. I’d never take your old insurance money.” She grasped him by her two slender, cold hands and tried ineffectually to shake him while he smiled down at her, and then hid her head on his breast, raising it, however, to say,
“Did you eat your dinner? I hope that it wasn’t burned.”
“I ate—some of it!”
“Oh,” she groaned, “and on such a night!”
“Never mind, I’m counting on a good hot little supper at Harrington’s. And, Agnes—” having none of the care of the children, he had a habit of intervening at inopportune moments with well-meant suggestions—“just listen to that child! Don’t you think he might go to sleep better if I brought him in here with us for a few moments?”
“No,” said his wife. She added afterward, sweetly in token of renewed amity, “He’s such a darling, and he looks more like you every day. He’ll be asleep soon. But I’m sure Gwendolen will have the croup to-night, the house has been so cold.”
“Oh, of course,” said Atterbury grimly. By some weird fatality the festive hour abroad was almost inevitably followed by harrowing attendance on one or other of the infants in the long watches of the night. Husband and wife looked at each other and laughed, and then kissed in silence, like two children, in simple accord.
It was with many instructions to Katy that the Atterburys finally left the house, instructions that comprehended the dampers, the babies, and the pipes.
“I don’t suppose that she will remember a word that we have told her,” said Agnes resignedly.
“Well, we are only going three doors away; I’ll run back after a while and see.”