Finally, Mary thought of something to say. She could let him know she was old enough to understand what the quarrel had been about if only it were explained to her.
Mary went into the library and hesitantly sat on the edge, of a couch near him. He did not look at her and his face seemed gray in the midday light. Then she knew that he was lonely, too. But a great feeling of tenderness for him went through her.
"Sometimes I think you and Clara Manz must be the only people in the world," she said abruptly, "who aren't so silly about shifting right on the dot. Why, I don't care if Susan Shorrs is an hour late for classes!"
Those first moments when he seized her in his arms, it seemed her heart would shake loose. It was as though she had uttered some magic formula, one that had abruptly opened the doors to his love. It was only after he had explained to her why he was always late on the first day of the family shift that she knew something was wrong. He did tell her, over and over, that he knew she was unhappy and that it was his fault. But he was at the same time soothing her, petting her, as if he was afraid of her.
He talked on and on. Gradually, Mary understood in his trembling body, in his perspiring palms, in his pleading eyes, that he was afraid of dying, that he was afraid she would kill him with the merest thing she said, with her very presence.
This was not painful to Mary, because, suddenly, something came with ponderous enormity to stand before her: I would just as soon the child did not realize her relationship to this sordid situation.
Her relationship. It was some kind of relationship to Conrad and Clara Manz, because those were the people they had been talking about.