She went tottering up her own doorsteps. As she slipped along the hall, and past the study door, Conifer called out:
“Is that you, Freda?”
“Yes, it is I.”
“Come in.”
She stepped over the threshold and stood in the warm room, her pale head hanging and her half-shut eyes filled with dread. She forced herself to look up at last and to stammer out:
“We drove down to Terry’s Theater, Mrs. Hart and I. But the house was full—so—so we drove back. That is all—really.”
Conifer was sitting over the big table as usual, and as usual it was strewn with papers. But the double knot of anxiety was untied from above his eyes and the packets of paper were pushed back. There was a new tenderness on his face, or, rather, the revival of on old one.
“I’m glad you came back,” he said. “I’ve got time to talk to you to-night, darling. I shall have time to take you about again myself. I’ve been awfully worried lately about business—you wouldn’t understand, it would only bother you. But I was afraid once that it meant ruin. I’ve been in a very tight place. But it’s all right now.”
He set back his shoulders and sighed, as if he threw off at that moment the burden of months.
“I shall,” he repeated, laughing foolishly, “have time for you now.”