Lily was, once more, knocked up, and the Canon called in Maurice to prescribe. He arrived in the late afternoon and was taken by the Canon into Lily's little sitting-room, where she lay on a couch by the fire. A small, shaded, reading lamp defined the shadows craftily.
"Now, Dale," the Canon said, "for goodness' sake tell her to be more orderly and to do less—mind and body. She behaves as if life was a whirlpool. She swims stupendously, tell her to float—and give her a tonic."
And he went out of the room shaking his head at the culprit on the couch.
When the door had shut upon him, Maurice came up to the fire in silence and looked at Lily. She smiled at him rather hopelessly, and then suddenly she said:
"Poor dear father! To ask you to make me take life so easily!"
That remark was the first onward gliding of their minds in speech, the uttered continuance of the hitherto silent colloquy between them. Maurice sat down. He accepted the irony of the situation suggested by the Canon without attempt at a protest.
"Life can never be easy, if one thinks," he said. Then, trying to adopt the medical tone, he added:
"But you think too much. I have often felt that lately."
"Yes," she said.
Her eyes were bent on him with a scrutiny that was nearly ungirlish. Maurice tried not to see it as he put his fingers on her wrist. She added: