“Your husband said I was not strong?” she questioned. “I am quite well. What made him think otherwise?”
“Judith put the idea in his head.” Mrs. Hale led the way into the boudoir as she spoke and selected a chair near her daughter’s desk, on which were piled the notes of condolence, in anticipation of Richards’ answering them under Judith’s supervision. “Judith is very much worried about your health, my dear.”
“That is very kind of Judith.” Polly slipped into the seat before Judith’s desk at a sign from Mrs. Hale. “But your daughter is mistaken. I am not in the least ill.”
“I am delighted to hear it.” Mrs. Hale looked at her husband’s pretty secretary with approval. “Judith is always so positive in her statements. I could not see that you looked run down, but she insisted that you needed a change, and arranged with Mr. Hale to give you a vacation.”
“Indeed!” The frigid exclamation escaped Polly unwittingly, but Mrs. Hale apparently was oblivious of the girl’s chilly reception of Judith’s plans.
“I am glad you don’t require a vacation,” she went on. “Mr. Hale is particularly in need of your services, and it would be most unkind to leave him in the lurch.”
“I have no intention of doing so, Mrs. Hale,” declared Polly with some warmth. “Aside from the question of my not being able to afford a vacation, gratitude to Mr. Hale, alone, would prevent me from going away just now.” She passed one restless hand over the other. “What possessed Judith to wish to get rid of me?”
“Now, my dear,”—Mrs. Hale held up a protesting hand—“don’t get such a notion in your head. Judith is devoted to you; we all are, but she imagined—you know Judith greatly depends upon her imagination—she is so, so,”—hunting about for a word—“so shut in with her deafness, and she is forever imagining things about people.”
“And what does she imagine about me?” asked Polly, as Mrs. Hale came to a somewhat incoherent pause.
“That you were on the point of nervous prostration—”