Two years later there was another baby—a daughter, its mother’s exquisite miniature. There was some bad luck for Sheila on this occasion, and the physician warned her against further child-bearing for several years. She was not up and about so soon as before, and a vague haze of melancholy settled about her. She took less interest in life.
Her laughter was not half so frequent or so clear; her mischief of satire was gone. She smiled on Bret more tenderly than ever, but it was tenderness rather than amusement. She had nerve-storms and idled about incessantly, and sometimes, with no apparent reason or warning, she would sigh frantically, leap to her feet, and pace the floor or the porch or the lawn aimlessly. When Bret anxiously asked her what was the matter she would gaze at him with sorrowful eyes and that doleful effort at a smile and say:
“Nothing, honey; nothing at all.”
“But you’re not happy?”
“Yes, I am, dear. Why shouldn’t I be? I have everything: my lover for my husband, my children, the home—everything.”
“Everything,” he would groan, “except—”
Then she would put her hands over his lips.
CHAPTER XLVI
Eugene Vickery’s sister Dorothy lived in Blithevale. Having lost her first choice, Bret Winfield, to the scintillating Sheila, she had sensibly accepted the devotion of his rival, Jim Greeley, who was now a junior partner in the big chemical works where his father manufactured drug staples.