Mrs. Wanning looked up and met his eyes in the glass. “The girls?”
She noticed a strange expression come over his face.
“About your health, you mean? Yes, dear, but I tried not to alarm them. They feel dreadfully. I’m going to have a talk with Dr. Seares myself. These specialists are all alarmists, and I’ve often heard of his frightening people.”
She rose and took her husband’s arm, drawing him toward the fireplace.
“You are not going to let this upset you, Paul? If you take care of yourself, everything will come out all right. You have always been so strong. One has only to look at you.”
“Did you,” Wanning asked, “say anything to Harold?”
“Yes, of course. I saw him in town today, and he agrees with me that Seares draws the worst conclusions possible. He says even the young men are always being told the most terrifying things. Usually they laugh at the doctors and do as they please. You certainly don’t look like a sick man, and you don’t feel like one, do you?”
She patted his shoulder, smiled at him encouragingly, and rang for the maid to come and hook her dress.
When the maid appeared at the door, Wanning went out through the bathroom to his own sleeping chamber. He was too much dispirited to put on a dinner coat, though such remissness was always noticed. He sat down and waited for the sound of the gong, leaving his door open, on the chance that perhaps one of his daughters would come in.
When Wanning went down to dinner he found his wife already at her chair, and the table laid for four.