Was it a comfort?
Didn’t she miss him every moment of the day?
All at once a sense of her own wickedness in thinking of Dan covered her with shame. She was Charlie’s wife, and she had no right to think of anyone but Charlie. She remembered how madly in love she had been with Charlie—poor Charlie! risking his life in that horrid native rising! If Charlie knew how fickle she had been, though it had only been in thought, would he cease to love her? She was not at all sure that she wanted Charlie to cease to love her. She was, on the whole, glad that Philip had insisted on her writing affectionately to her husband.
All at once Phyllis burst into a fit of hysterical laughter.
“I believe dad is right,” she told herself. “I don’t know my own mind! But where—where shall I land?”
“Hallo!” came in the stentorian voice of Mr. Burns, from the bottom of the staircase. “What’s the joke?”
He mounted the stairs heavily and appeared in the doorway of the studio.
“What’s the joke?” he repeated.
“Look at my picture, Mr. Burns!” cried Phyllis with renewed laughter. “That chicken I have painted couldn’t walk in at the cottage door if he tried! See! he is close to the cottage and his head is level with the bedroom window!”
Uncle Robert adjusted his spectacles and looked at the work of art in question.