A frowsly headed, sullen girl met them at the head of the stairs. “He’s bumped hisself again,” she said by way of greeting.
“Then watch him more, Herta,” Lorraine was petulant. “Dear me, such a great lad ought to be more steady on his feet, I should think!”
The disordered nursery exhibited traces of a large lunch which Herta had consumed, a novel spread face downward, also for Herta, and the outlines of Herta’s recumbent form on the divan. Thurley’s face was disapproving as she said swiftly:
“If I were a detective, I could explain why the Boy bumped himself!”
“Oh, Herta’s mad about him,—dear me, some days I never see him at all. He’s terribly self-willed. I spoiled him those first months because we—we were all so happy,” she flushed as she went ahead. “Then Dan went away and I saw my duty as a war worker. I really have lived in the fullest sense since I went in for public work. Thurley, let’s be friends—I used to think I envied you because Dan had once loved you so,” there was a trace of the old Lorraine as she spoke, but with a surety of opinion which told Thurley that Lorraine’s husband now loved only his wife! “Boy made it all so different. Now I envy you because you are free, unhampered, able to do things—I’d be in France if I could.”
Herta appeared with Boy in her arms, a splendid little chap if he had had a little more grooming. There were telltale hollows under his pinkish rimmed eyes indicative of nervous spasms, of unattended or unchecked sobs, his hands were soiled and scratched and a blue-black bump stood out over one temple; he tried his best both to abuse and welcome his mother in his incoherent greeting.
“Oh, see his poor head.” Thurley took him from the girl’s unwilling arms. “Didn’t you put anything on it?” she asked her sharply.
“He’s got an awful temper,” the girl retorted. “He fights me off for fair. I would have, but he didn’t want it—so I let him cry it out.”
Lorraine interposed, “It is my own fault—I never left him alone at first and it makes it hard for any one else who looks after him.”