Thus adjured, it was natural that poor Mr. Andrews should think it best to go away. Nobody wanted him, evidently, and he had been ordered away by two women, when one was always quite enough for him. So he took Jay by the hand and went out into the dim path that led up to his own house. It was, no doubt, time to put the child to bed! The clock in the hall was just proclaiming three in its queer voice, as he went in, and stumbled through the darkness up to the nursery, where he had to go through another scene with the nurse, who woke up and was hysterical.
But Jay soon battered the hysterics out of her. He had been fretful before, but now he was fiendish, and it was as much as they could do to get him into bed. I am afraid it passed through her mind that he'd better have got to France, and it took all the paternal love of Mr. Andrews to keep from inaugurating his return home by a good thrashing. The tragic and comic and very unpleasant are mixed in such an intimate way in some cups.
CHAPTER XVII.
ENTER MISS VARIAN.
The next day about noon Mr. Andrews, with Jay by the hand, walked up the steps of the Varians' house. He had got a few hours of sleep after daylight, and had just swallowed a cup of coffee and called it breakfast, and now, looking haggard and weary, had, as was proper, come over to see about Missy and her hysterics.
She too had just come down-stairs, and was sitting in a great chair by the window in the parlor, with footstool under her feet and an afghan spread over her. The day was cool and brilliant; all the fogs and clouds of the night had been blown away by a strong north wind; the sun was coming in at the window, and Missy was trying to get warm in it, for she felt like Harry Gill in the story-book, as if she should never get warm again. She was pale, and lay with her head back in the chair, looking a disgust with life and its emotions. From this attitude she was roused by the unexpected entrance of Jay and his father, whose approach she had not heard. She changed color and tried to stand up, and then sat down again.
"Don't get up," said Mr. Andrews, lifting Jay to kiss her. "There, Jay, now you'd better go away. Find Goneril and play with the kittens a little while, and then I'll take you home."
He opened the door for Jay, who was very willing to go, not feeling quite at home with Missy yet, since the fainting-fit. He looked askance at her as he went out of the door, as at one who had come back from the dead.