She smiled dutifully. There was no need to make him angry, she reflected, before she must. He had not yet gone into the parlour—had not yet asked for his mail.
It was a warm dusk, moonless, windless. The sounds of the village street came in—laughter, a touch at a piano, a chiming clock. Lights starred and quickened in the blurred houses. Footsteps echoed on the board walks. The gate opened. The gloom yielded up Cornish.
Lulu was inordinately glad to see him. To have the strain of the time broken by him was like hearing, on a lonely whiter wakening, the clock strike reassuring dawn.
"Lulu," said Dwight low, "your dress. Do go!"
Lulu laughed. "The bridal shawl takes off the curse," she said.
Cornish, in his gentle way, asked about the journey, about the sick woman—and Dwight talked of her again, and this time his voice broke. Di was curiously silent. When Cornish addressed her, she replied simply and directly—the rarest of Di's manners, in fact not Di's manner at all. Lulu spoke not at all—it was enough to have this respite.
After a little the gate opened again. It was Bobby. In the besetting fear that he was leaving Di to face something alone, Bobby had arrived.
And now Di's spirits rose. To her his presence meant repentance, recapitulation. Her laugh rang out, her replies came archly. But Bobby was plainly not playing up. Bobby was, in fact, hardly less than glum. It was Dwight, the irrepressible fellow, who kept the talk going. And it was no less than deft, his continuously displayed ability playfully to pierce Lulu. Some one had "married at the drop of the hat. You know the kind of girl?" And some one "made up a likely story to soothe her own pride—you know how they do that?"
"Well," said Ina, "my part, I think the most awful thing is to have somebody one loves keep secrets from one. No wonder folks get crabbed and spiteful with such treatment."
"Mamma!" Monona shouted from her room. "Come and hear me say my prayers!"