"Margaret!" My mother-in-law's tone was almost tragic. "Richard has gone off with my trunk checks."
"Why, of course, he has," I returned, wondering a little at her anxious tone. "I suppose he expects to give them to an expressman and have the trunks brought up this morning."
"Richard never remembered anything in his life," said his mother tartly. "Those trunks ought to be here before I leave for the day."
"Oh, I don't think it would be possible for them to arrive here before we have to start, even if Dicky gives them to an expressman right away, as I am sure he will do."
It seemed queer to be defending Dicky to his mother, but I felt a curious little thrill of resentment that she should criticise him. I sometimes may judge Dicky harshly myself, but I don't care to hear criticism of him from any other lips, even those of his mother.
"Richard will carry those checks in his pocket until he comes home again, if he is lucky enough not to lose them," said his mother decidedly. "I wish you would telephone him at his studio and remind him that they must be looked after."
Obediently I went to the telephone. I knew Dicky had had plenty of time to get to the studio, as it was but a short walk from our apartment.
"Madison Square 3694," I said in answer to Central's request for "number."
When the answer came I almost dropped the receiver in my surprise. It was not Dicky's voice that came to my ears, but that of a stranger, a woman's voice, rich and musical.
"Yes?" with a rising inflection, "this is Mr. Graham's studio. He has not yet reached here. What message shall I give him, please, when he comes in?"
"Please ask him to call up his home." Then I hung up the receiver and turned from the telephone, putting down my agitation with a firm hand until I could be alone.
"Dicky has not yet reached the studio," I said to his mother calmly. "I think very probably he has gone first to see an expressman about your trunks. If you will pardon me I have a few things to attend to before we start on our trip. Is there anything I can do for you?"
"No, thank you." Mrs. Graham's tone was still the cold, courteous one that she used in addressing me. "I suppose I can ring for Katie when I am ready to have my dress fastened?"
"Oh! by all means," I returned. I thought bitterly of the little services I used to perform for my own mother. How gladly I would anticipate the wants of Dicky's mother if she would only show me affection instead of the ill-concealed aversion with which she regarded me.
My mother-in-law went into her room, and I, walking swiftly to mine, closed and locked the door behind me. I threw myself face downward on the bed, my favorite posture when I wished to think things out.
The voice of the woman at the studio haunted me. It was strange, but familiar, and I could not remember where I had heard it.
What was a woman doing in Dicky's studio at this time in the morning, anyway? I knew that Dicky employed feminine models, but I also knew that he always made it a point to be at the studio before the model was due to arrive.
"I suppose I am an awful crank," he had laughed once, "but no models rummaging among my things for mine."
I knew that Dicky employed no secretary, or at least he had told me that he did not I had heard him laughingly promise himself that when his income reached $10,000 a year he would hire one.
All at once the solution to the mystery dawned upon me. The rich, musical voice belonged to Grace Draper, the beautiful girl whom Dicky had seen first on a train on our memorable trip to Marvin.
Why hadn't Dicky told me that she was at the studio? The question rankled in the back of my brain.
That was not my main concern, however. What swept me with a sudden primitive emotion, which I know must be jealousy, was the picture of that beautiful face, that wonderful figure in daily close companionship with my husband.
Suppose she should fall in love with Dicky! To my mind I did not see how any woman could help it. Would she have any scruples about endeavoring to win Dicky's love from me?
My common sense told me that this was the veriest nonsense. But I could no more help my feelings than I could control the shape of my nose.
The ring of the telephone bell put a temporary end to my speculations. I pulled myself together in order to talk calmly to Dicky, for I knew it must be he who was calling.
"Madge, is this you? Whatever has happened?"
"Nothing is the matter," I said quickly, "but you have your mother's trunk checks, and she is anxious about them."
"By Jove!" Dicky's voice was full of consternation. "I forgot everything about those trunk checks until this minute. I should have attended to them yesterday, but"—he hesitated, then finished lamely—"I didn't have time."
I felt my face flush as though Dicky could see me. The reason why he did not have time to see to his mother's trunks on the day of her arrival, touched a subject any allusion to which would always bring a flush to my face.
I was still too shaken with the varying emotions I had experienced the day before to bear well any reference to them, no matter how casual. Fortunately, Dicky was too much taken up with his own remissness to notice my silence.
"I'll go out this minute and attend to them," he said. "Try to keep the mater's mind diverted from them if you can. Better get her away on your sight-seeing trip as soon as possible."
Having thus shifted his responsibilities to my shoulders, Dicky blithely hung up the receiver. I turned to his mother.
"Well!" she demanded.
"He is going out now to attend to the trunks," I said.
"There! I knew he had forgotten them," she exclaimed, with a little malicious feminine triumph running through her tones. "When will they be here?"
"Not before noon at the earliest," I repeated Dicky's words in as matter-of-fact way as possible. "Probably not until 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon. We might as well start on our trip. Katie is perfectly capable of attending to them."
Then she said, "How soon will you be ready?"
"I am afraid it will be half an hour before I can start," I said apologetically.
"That will be all right," my mother-in-law returned good humoredly.She was evidently much pleased at the prospect of the trip.
"It's wonderful! Wonderful!" she said as the full view of New York harbor burst upon our eyes when we came out of the subway and rounded the Barge office into Battery Park.
"Wait a moment. I want to fill my soul with it."
I felt my heart warm toward her. I have always loved the harbor. Many treasured hours have I spent watching it from the sea wall or from the deck of one of the Staten Island ferries. To me it is like a loved friend. I enjoy hearing its praises, I shrink from hearing it criticised. Mrs. Graham's hearty admiration made me feel more kindly toward her than I had yet done.
Neither of us spoke again for several minutes. My gaze followed my mother-in-law's as she turned from one marvel of the view to another.
At last she turned to me, her face softened. "I am ready to go on now," she said. "I have always loved the remembrance of this harbor since I first saw it years ago."
We walked slowly on toward the Aquarium, both of us watching the ships as they came into the bay from the North river. The fussy, spluttering little tugs, the heavily laden ferries, the lazy fishing boats, the dredges and scows—even the least of them was made beautiful by its setting of clear winter sun and sparkling water.
"How few large ocean steamers there seem to be!" commented my mother-in-law, as a large ocean-going vessel cast off its tug and glided past us on its way out to sea. "I suppose it is on account of the war," she continued indifferently.
At this moment I heard a comment from a passing man that brought back to me the misery of the day before.
"I guess that's the Saturn," he said to his companion as they walked near us. "She was due to sail this morning. Got a lot of French reservists on board. Poor devils! Anybody getting into that hell over there has about one chance in a million to get out again."
Forgetful of my mother-in-law's presence, indeed, of everything else in the world, I turned and gazed at the steamer making its way out to sea. I knew that somewhere on its decks stood Jack, my brother-cousin, the best friend my mother and I had ever known. When he had come back from a year's absence to ask me to be his wife he had found that I had married Dicky. Then he had announced his intention of joining the French engineering corps.
What had that man said just now? Not one chance in a million! I felt as if it were my hand that was pushing him across the ocean to almost certain death.
When I could no longer see the Saturn as she churned her way out to sea, I turned around quickly with a sense of guilt at having ignored my mother-in-law's presence, and then a voice sounded in my ear.
"You don't seem delighted to see me. I am surprised at you."
Harry Underwood towered above me, his handsome face marred by the little, leering smile he generally wears, his bold, laughing eyes staring down into my horrified ones.
I do not believe that ever a woman of a more superstitious time dreaded the evil eye as I do the glance of Harry Underwood.
How to answer him or what to do I did not know. He evidently had been drinking enough to make himself irresponsible.
He did not give me time to ponder long, however, "Who is your lady friend," he burlesqued. "Introduce me."
A man less audacious than Harry Underwood would have been daunted by the picture my mother-in-law presented as he turned toward her. Her figure was drawn up to its extreme height, and she was surveying him through her lorgnette with an expression that held disgust mingled with the curiosity an explorer might feel at meeting some strange specimen of animal in his travels.
"Mrs. Graham, this is Mr. Underwood," I managed to stammer. "Mr.Underwood, Mrs. Graham, Dicky's mother."
My mother-in-law may overawe ordinary people, but Harry Underwood minded her disdain no more than he would have the contempt of a stately Plymouth Rock hen. She had lowered the lorgnette as I spoke, and he grabbed the hand which still held it, shaking it as warmly as if it belonged to some long-lost friend.
"Well! Well!" he said effusively. "But this is great. Dear old Dicky's mother!" He stopped and fixed a speculating stare upon her. "You mean his sister," he said reprovingly to me. "Don't tell me you mean his mother. No, no, I can't believe that."
He shook his head solemnly. Evidently he was much impressed with himself. If I had not been so miserable I could have smiled at the idea of Harry Underwood trying on the elder Mrs. Graham the silly specious flatteries he addressed to most women. My mother-in-law did not deign to answer him. Her manner was superb in its haughty reserve, although I could not say much for her courtesy. As he released her hand she let it drop quietly to her side and stood still, gazing at him with a quiet, disdainful look that would have made almost any other man wince.
But it did not bother Harry Underwood in the least. He gave her a shrewd appraising look and then turned to me with an air of dismissal that was as complete as her ignoring of him.
"Say!" he demanded, "aren't you a bit curious about what brought me down here? You ought to be. The funniest thing in the world, my being down here."
His silly repetitions, his slurred enunciation, his slightly unsteady figure made me realize with a quick horror that the man was more intoxicated than I supposed. How to get away from him as quickly as possible was the problem I faced. I decided to humor him as I would any other insane person I dreaded.
"I am never curious," I responded lightly. "I suppose, of course, that you are here to visit the Aquarium, as we are. Good-by."
"No you don't—goin' to take you and little lady here on nice ferry trip," he announced genially. "Sorry, yacht's out of commission this morning, but ferry will do very well."
I have not much reason to like my mother-in-law, but I shall always be grateful to her for the way she cut the Gordian knot of my difficulties.
"Young man, you are impertinent and intoxicated," she said haughtily."Please step aside."
And taking me firmly by the arm my mother-in-law walked steadily with me toward the door of the women's rest room. Her manner of conducting me was much the same as the matron of a reformatory would use in taking a charge from one place to another, but I was too relieved to care. The leering face of Harry Underwood was no longer before my eyes, and his befuddled words no longer jarred upon my ears. Those were the only things that mattered to me for the moment. In my relief I felt strong enough to brave the weight of my mother-in-law's anger, which I was very sure was about to descend upon me.
Safe in the shelter of the Aquarium rest room my mother-in-law faced me. Her eyes were cold and hard, her tones like ice, as she spoke.
"Margaret! What is the meaning of this outrageous scene to which you have just subjected me? Am I to understand that this man is typical of your associates and friends? If so, I am indeed sorrier than ever that my son was ever inveigled into marrying you."
For the moment I had a primitive instinct to scream and to smash things generally, a sort of Berserk rage. The insult left me deadly cold. Fortunately we were alone in the room, but I lowered my voice almost to a whisper as I replied to her:
"Mrs. Graham," I said. "I never in my life knew there was a man like Mr. Underwood until I married your son. He and his wife, Lillian Gale, are your son's most intimate friends. He has almost forced me to meet them time and again against my own inclinations. Of course, after what you have just said, there can be no further question of our trip together. If you will kindly wait here I will telephone your son to come and get you at once."
I started for the door, but a little gasping cry from my mother-in-law stopped me. She was feebly beating the air with her hands, her eyes were distended, and her cheeks and lips had the ashen color which I had learned to associate with my own little mother's frequent attacks.
Filled with remorse, I flew to her side and lowered her gently into an arm chair which stood near. Snatching her handbag I opened it and took out a little bottle of volatile salts which I knew she carried. I pressed it into her hands, and then took out a tiny bottle of drops with a familiar label. They were the same that my mother had used for years. Taking a spoon which I also found in the bag, I measured the drops, added a bit of water from the faucet in the adjoining room, and gave them to her. As I came toward her I heard her murmuring to herself:
"Lillian Gale! Lillian Gale!" she was saying. "How blind I've been."
Even in my anxiety for her condition I found time to wonder as to the significance of her exclamations. Evidently the name of Lillian Gale was familiar to her. From her tones also I knew that it was not a welcome name. What was there in this past friendship of Dicky and Mrs. Underwood to cause his mother so much emotion? I remembered the comments I had heard at the theatre about my husband's friendship with this woman.
All my old doubts and misgivings which had been smothered by the very real admiration I had felt for Lillian Gale's many good qualities revived. What was the secret in the lives of these two? I felt that for my own peace of mind I must know.
The color was gradually coming back to my mother-in-law's face. I stood by her chair, forgetting her insults, remembering nothing save that she was old and a sick woman.
"Is there anything I can get for you?" I asked as I saw the strained look in her eyes die out.
"Nothing, thank you," she said. Then to my surprise she reached up her hand, took mine in hers, and pressed it feebly. I could not understand her quick transition from bitter contempt to friendly warmth. Evidently something in my words had startled her and had changed her viewpoint. But I put speculation aside until some more opportune time. The imperative thing for me was to minister to her needs, mentally and physically.
"How do you feel now?" I asked.
"Much better, thank you," she replied. Then in a tone I had never heard from her lips before: "Come here, my child."
I could hardly credit my own ears. Surely those gentle words, that soft tone, could not belong to my husband's mother, who, in the short time she had been an inmate of our home, had lost no opportunity to show her dislike for me, and her resentment that her son had married me.
But I obeyed her and came to her side. She put up her hand and took mine, and I saw her proud old face work with emotion.
"I was unjust to you a few moments ago, Margaret," she said, "and I want to beg your pardon."
If she had not been old, in feeble health and my husband's mother, I would have considered the words scant reparation for the contemptuous phrases with which she had scourged my spirit a few moments before.
But I was sane enough to know that the simple "I beg your pardon" from the lips of the elder Mrs. Graham was equivalent to a whole torrent of apologies from any ordinary person. I knew my mother-in-law's type of mind. To admit she was wrong, to ask for one's forgiveness, was to her a most bitter thing.
So I put aside from me every other feeling but consideration of the proud old woman holding my hand, and said gently:
"I can assure you that I cherish no resentment. Let us not speak of it again."
"I am afraid we shall have to speak of it, at least of the incident which led me to say the things to you I did," she returned. I saw with amazement that she was trying to conquer an emotion, the reason for which I felt certain had something to do with her discovery that the Underwoods were Dick's friends.
"I have a duty to you to perform," she went on, "a very painful duty, which involves the reviving of an old controversy with my son. I beg that you will not try to find out anything concerning its nature. It is far better that you do not."
I felt smothered, as if I were being swathed in folds upon folds of black cloth. What could this mystery be, this secret in the past friendship of my husband and Lillian Gale, the woman whom he had introduced to me as his best friend, and into whose companionship and that of her husband, Harry Underwood, he had thrown me as much as possible.
A hot anger rose within me. What right had anyone to deny knowledge of such a secret, or to discourage me in any attempt to find out its nature. I resolved to lose no time in probing the unworthy thing to its depths.
My mother-in-law's next words crystallized my determination.
"I think I ought to see Richard at once," she said. "I am sorry to give up our trip. I had quite counted upon seeing some of old New York today, but I wish to lose no time in seeing him. Besides, I do not think I am equal to further sightseeing."
"It will be of no use for you to go home," I said smoothly, "for Richard will not be there, and he has left the studio by now, I am sure. He has an engagement with an art editor this afternoon. We may not be able to look at the churches you wished to see, but you ought to have some luncheon before we go home. I will call a cab and we will go over to Fraunces's Tavern, one of the most interesting places in New York. You know Washington said farewell to his officers in the long room on the second floor."
The first part of my sentence was a deliberate falsehood. I had no reason to believe Dicky would not be at his studio all day, but I had resolved that no one should speak to my husband on the subject of the secret which his past and that of Lillian Gale shared until I had had a chance to talk to him about it.
I do not know when a simple problem has so perplexed me as did the dilemma I faced while sitting opposite my mother-in-law at lunch in Fraunces's Tavern.
With the obstinacy of a spoiled child the elder Mrs. Graham was persisting in sitting with her heavy coat on while she ate her luncheon, although our table was next to the big, old fireplace, in which a good fire was burning. Indeed, it was the table's location, which she had selected herself, that was the cause of her obstinacy. She had construed an innocent remark of mine into a slur upon her choice, and had evidently decided to wear her coat to emphasize the fact that in spite of the fire she was none too warm, and there she had sat all through lunch with her heavy coat on.
As I watched the beads of perspiration upon her forehead, and her furtive dabbing at them with her handkerchief, I realized that something must be done. I saw that she would soon be in a condition to receive a chill, which might prove fatal.
Suddenly her imperious voice broke into my thoughts.
"Where is the Long Room of which you spoke? On the second floor?"
"Yes. Would you like to see it?"
"Very much." She rose from her chair, crossed the dining room into the hall and ascended the staircase, and I followed her upward, noting again, with a quick remorsefulness, her slow step, the way she leaned upon the stair rail for support and her quickened breathing as she neared the top. It was a little thing, after all, I told myself sharply, to subordinate my individuality and cater to her whims. I resolved to be more considerate of her in the future. But my native caution made me make a reservation. I would yield to her wishes whenever my self-respect would let me do so. I had a shrewd notion that a person who would cater to every whim of my husband's mother would be little better than a slave.
She spent so much time over the old letters in Washington's handwriting, the snuff boxes and keys and coins with which the cases were filled that I was alarmed lest she should over-tire herself. But I did not dare to venture the suggestion that she should postpone her inspection until another time.
But when I saw her shiver and draw her cloak more closely about her, I resolved to brave her possible displeasure.
"I am afraid you are taking cold," I said, going up to her. "Do you think we had better leave the rest of these things for another visit?"
Her face as she turned it toward me frightened me. It was gray and drawn, and her whole figure was shaking as with the ague.
"I am afraid I am going to be ill," she said faintly. "I am so cold."
I put her in a chair and dashed down the stairs.
"Please call a taxi for me at once, and bring some brandy or wine upstairs," I said to the attendant. "My mother-in-law is ill."
As the taxi hurried us homeward I became more and more alarmed at her condition. Her very evident suffering now heightened my fears.
"Are we nearly there?" she said faintly. "I am so cold."
"Only a few blocks more." I tried to speak reassuringly. Then I ventured on something which I had wanted to do ever since we left the tavern, but which my mother-in-law's dislike of being aided in any way had prevented.
I slipped off my coat, and, turning toward her, wrapped it closely around her shoulders, and took her in my arms as I would a child. To my surprise she huddled closer to me, only protesting faintly:
"You must not do that. You will take cold."
"Nonsense," I replied. "I never take cold, and we are almost there."
"I am so glad," she sighed, and leaned more heavily against me.
As I felt her weight in my arms and realized that she was actually clinging to me, actually depending upon me for help and comfort, I felt my heart warm toward her.
I have never worked faster in my life than when I helped my mother-in-law undress before the blazing gas log, put her nightgown and heavy bathrobe around her and immersed her feet in the foot bath of hot mustard water which Katie had brought to me.
As I worked over her I came to a decision. I would get her safe and warm in bed, leave Katie within call, then slip out and telephone Dicky from the neighboring drug store. I did not dare to send for a physician against my mother-in-law's expressed prohibition. On the other hand, I knew that Dicky would be very angry if I did not send for one.
The hot footbath and the steaming drink which I had given her when she first came in, together with the warmth of the gas log seemed to make my mother-in-law more comfortable. As I dried her feet and slipped them into a pair of warm bedroom slippers she smiled down at me.
"At least I am not cold now," she said.
"Don't you think you had better come and lie down now?" I asked.
"Yes, I think it would be better," she asserted, and with Katie and me upon either side, she walked into her room and got into bed.
I slipped the bedroom slippers off, put one hot water bag to her feet and the other to her back, covered her up warmly and lowered the shade.
Her eyes closed immediately. I stood watching her breathing for two or three minutes. It was heavier, I fancied than normal. As I went out of the room I spoke in a low tone to Katie, directing her to watch her till I returned.
As I descended the stairs all the doubts of the morning rushed over me. It was long after 2 o'clock, the hour when Dicky usually returned to the studio. I had jumped at the conclusion that Dicky was lunching with Grace Draper, the beautiful art student who was his model and protégé.
It was not so much anger that I felt at Dicky's lunching with another woman as fear. I faced the issue frankly. Grace Draper was much too beautiful and attractive a girl to be thrown into daily intimate companionship with any man. I felt in that moment that I hated her as much as I feared her. I hoped that it would not be her voice which I would hear over the 'phone. I felt that I could not bear to listen to those deep, velvety tones of hers.
But when I reached the drug store and entered the telephone booth, it was her voice which answered my call of Dicky's number.
"Yes, this is Mr. Graham's studio," she said smoothly. "No, Mr. Graham is not here, he has not been here since 11 o'clock. Pardon me, is this not Mrs. Graham to whom I am speaking?"
"I am Mrs. Graham, yes," I replied, trying to put a little cordiality into my voice. "You are Miss Draper, are you not?"
"Yes," she replied. "Mr. Graham wished me to give you a message. He was called away to a conference with one of the art editors about 11 o'clock. He expected to lunch with him and said he might not be in the studio until quite late this afternoon."
"Have you any idea where he is lunching or where I could reach him?" I asked sharply.
"Why! no, Mrs. Graham, I have not. Is there anything wrong?"
"His mother has been taken ill and I am very much worried about her. If Mr. Graham comes in or telephones will you ask him to come home at once, 'phoning me first if he will."
"Of course I will attend to it. Is there anything else I can do?"
"Nothing, thank you, you are very kind," I returned, and there was genuine warmth in my voice this time.
For the discovery that I had been mistaken in my idea of Dicky's luncheon engagement made me so ashamed of myself that I had no more rancor against my husband's beautiful protégé.
I laughed bitterly at my own silliness as I turned from the telephone. While I had been tormenting myself for hours at the picture I had drawn of Dicky and his beautiful model lunching vis-a-vis, Dicky had been keeping a prosaic business engagement with a man, and his model had probably lunched frugally and unromantically on a sandwich or two brought from home.
"Will you kindly tell me who is the best physician here?"
"Why—I—pardon me—" the drug store clerk stammered. "Wait a moment and I'll inquire. I'm new here."
"The boss says this chap's the best around here." He held out a penciled card to me. "Dr. Pettit. Madison Square 4258."
"Dr. Pettit!" I repeated to myself. "Why! that must be the physician who came to the apartment the night of my chafing dish party, when the baby across the hall was brought to us in a convulsion."
A sudden swift remembrance came to me of the tact and firmness with which the tall young physician had handled the difficult situation he had found in our apartment. He was just the man, I decided, to handle my refractory mother-in-law. So I called him up and he promised to call as soon as his office hours were over.
My feet traveled no faster than my thoughts as I hurried back to my own apartment and the bedside of my mother-in-law. I dreaded inexpressibly the conflict I foresaw when the autocratic old woman should find out that I had sent for a physician against her wishes.
As I entered the living room Katie rose from her seat at the door of my mother-in-law's room.
"She not move while you gone," she said. "She sleep all time, but I 'fraid she awful seeck, she breathe so hard."
I went lightly into the bedroom and stood looking down upon the austere old face against the pillow. It was a flushed old face now, and the eyelids twitched as if there were pain somewhere in the body. Her breathing, too, was more rapid and heavy than when I had left her, or so I fancied.
My inability to do anything for her depressed me. By slipping my hand under the blankets I had ascertained that the hot water bags were sufficiently warm. There was nothing more for me to do but to sit quietly and watch her until the physician's arrival.
I wanted to bring Dr. Pettit to her bedside before she should awaken. Then I would let him deal with her obstinate refusal to see a physician. But how I wished that Dicky would come home.
As if I had rubbed Aladdin's lamp, I heard the hall door slam, and my husband came rushing into the room.
"What is the matter with mother?" Dicky demanded, his face and voice filled with anxiety.
I sprang to him and put my hand to his lips, for he had almost shouted the words.
"Hush! She is asleep," I whispered. "Don't waken her if you can help it."
"Why isn't there a doctor here?" he demanded fiercely.
"Dr. Pettit will be here in a very few moments," I whispered rapidly. "Your mother said she would not have a physician, but she appeared so ill I did not dare to wait until your return to the studio. I telephoned you, and when Miss Draper said she did not know where to get you, I 'phoned to Dr. Pettit on my own authority."
"You don't think mother is in any danger, do you, Madge?"
"Why, I don't think I am a good judge of illness," I answered, evasively, unwilling to hurt Dicky by the fear in my heart. "The physician ought to be here any minute now, and then we will know."
A sharp, imperative ring of the bell and Katie's entrance punctuated my words. Dicky started toward the door as Katie opened it to admit the tall figure of Dr. Pettit.
"Ah, Dr. Pettit I believe we have met before," Dicky said easily. "When Mrs. Graham spoke of you I did not remember that we had seen you so recently. I am glad that we were able to get you."
"Thank you," the physician returned gravely. "Where is the patient?"
"In this room." Dicky turned toward the bedroom door, and Dr. Pettit at once walked toward it. I mentally contrasted the two men as I followed them to my mother-in-law's room. There was a charming ease of manner about Dicky which the other man did not possess. He was, in fact, almost awkward in his movements, and decidedly stiff in his manner. But there was an appearance of latent strength in every line of his figure, a suggestion of power and ability to cope with emergencies. I had noticed it when he took charge of the baby in convulsions who had been brought to my apartment by its nurse. I marked it again as Dicky paused at the door of his mother's room.
"I don't know how you will manage, doctor." He smiled deprecatingly. "My mother positively refuses to see a physician, but we know she needs one."
"You are her nearest relative?" Dr. Pettit queried gravely, almost formally. His question had almost the air of securing a legal right for his entrance into the room.
"Oh, yes."
"Very well," and he stepped lightly to the side of the bed and stood looking down upon the sick woman.
He took out his watch, and I knew he was counting her respirations.Then, with the same impersonal air, he turned to Dicky.
"It will be necessary to rouse her. Will you awaken her, please? Do not tell her I am here. Simply waken her."
Dicky bent over his mother and took her hand.
"Mother, what was it you wished me to get for you?"
The elder Mrs. Graham opened her eyes languidly.
"I told you quinine," she said impatiently. As she spoke, Dr. Pettit reached past Dicky. His hand held a thermometer.
"Put this in your mouth, please." His air was as casual as if he had made daily visits to her for a fortnight.
But the elder Mrs. Graham was not to be so easily routed. She scowled up at him and half rose from her pillow.
"I do not wish a physician. I forbade having one called. I am not ill enough for a physician."
Dr. Pettit put out his left hand and gently put her back again upon her pillow. It was done so deftly that I do not think she realized what he had done until she was again lying down.
"You must not excite yourself," he said, still in the same grave, impersonal tone, "and you are more ill than you think. It is absolutely necessary that I get your temperature and examine your lungs at once."
As if the words had been a talisman of some sort, her opposition dropped from her. Into her face came a frightened look.
"Oh, doctor, you don't think I am going to have pneumonia, do you?"
I was amazed at the cry. It was like that of a terrified child. Dr.Pettit smiled down at her.
"We hope not. We shall do our best to keep it away. But you must help me. Put this in your mouth, please."
My mother-in-law obeyed him docilely. But my heart sank as I watched the physician's face.
Suddenly she cried out, "Richard! Richard, if I am in danger of pneumonia, as this doctor thinks, I want a trained nurse here at once, one who has had experience in pneumonia cases. Margaret means well, but threatened pneumonia with my heart needs more than good intentions."
"Of course, mother," Dicky acquiesced. "I was just about to suggest one to Dr. Pettit."
"But, doctor," Dicky said anxiously when we followed him into the living room, "where are we to find a nurse?"
"Fortunately," Dr. Pettit rejoined, "I have just learned that absolutely the best nurse I know is free. Her name is Miss Katherine Sonnot, and her skill and common sense are only equalled by her exquisite tact. She is just the person to handle the case, and if you will give me the use of your 'phone I think I can have her here within an hour."
"Of course," assented Dicky, and led the way to the telephone.
I did not hear what the physician said at first, but as he closed the conversation a note in his voice arrested my attention.
"You are sure you are not too tired? Very well. I will see you here tonight. Good-by."
Woman-like, I thought I detected a romance. The tenderness in his voice could mean but one thing, that he admired, perhaps loved the woman he had praised so extravagantly.
After he went away, promising to return in the evening, I busied myself with the services to my mother-in-law he had asked me to perform, and then sat down to wait for Miss Sonnot. Dicky wandered in and out like a restless ghost until I wanted to shriek from very nervousness.
But the first glimpse of the slender girl who came quietly into the room and announced herself as Miss Sonnot steadied me. She was a "slip of a thing," as my mother would have dubbed her, with great, wistful brown eyes that illumined her delicate face. But there was an air of efficiency about her every movement that made you confident she would succeed in anything she undertook.
I have always been such a difficult, reserved sort of woman that I have very few friends. I did not understand the impulse that made me resolve to win this girl's friendship if I could.
One thing I knew. The grave, sweet face, the steady eyes told me. One could lay a loved one's life in those slim, capable hands and rest assured that as far as human aid could go it would be safe.
"Keep her quiet. Above all things, do not let her get excited over anything."
Miss Sonnot was giving me my parting instructions as to the care of my sick mother-in-law before taking the sleep which she so sorely needed, on the day that Dr. Pettit declared my mother-in-law had passed the danger point. Thanks to her ministrations I had been able to sleep dreamlessly for hours. Now refreshed and ready for anything, I had prepared my room for her, and had accompanied her to it that I might see her really resting.
She was so tired that her eyes closed even as she gave me the admonition. I drew the covers closer about her, raised the window a trifle, drew down the shades, and left her.
As I closed the door softly behind me, I heard the querulous voice of the invalid:
"Margaret! Margaret! Where are you?"
As I bent over my husband's mother she smiled up at me. Her illness had done more to bridge the chasm, between us than years of companionship could have done. One cannot cherish bitterness toward an old woman helplessly ill and dependent upon one. And I think in her own peculiar way she realized that I was giving her all I had of strength and good will.
"What can I do for you?" I asked, returning her smile.
"I want something to eat, and after that I want to have a talk withRichard. Where is he?"
"He is asleep," I answered mechanically. In a moment my thoughts had flown back to the day my mother-in-law and I had met Harry Underwood in trip Aquarium, and she had discovered he was Lillian Gale's husband.
What was it Dicky's mother had said that day in the Aquarium rest room?
"I have a duty to you to perform," she had declared, "a very painful duty, which involves the reviving of an old controversy with my son. I beg that you will not try to find out anything concerning its nature. It is better far that you do not."
She had wished to go home at once and talk to Dicky. I had persuaded her to go first to Fraunces's Tavern for luncheon. There she had been taken ill, and in the days that had intervened between that time and the moment I leaned over her bedside she and we around her had been fighting for her life. There had been no opportunity for a confidential talk between mother and son. And I was determined that there should be none yet.
In the first place, she was in no condition to discuss any subject, let alone one fraught with so many possibilities of excitement. In the second place, I was determined that no one should discuss that old secret with my husband before I had a chance to talk to him concerning it.
"Well, you needn't go to sleep just because Richard is."
My mother-in-law's impatient voice brought me back to myself. I apologized eagerly.
I have never seen any one enjoy food as my mother-in-law did the simple meal I had prepared for her. She ate every crumb, drank the wine, and drained the pot of tea before she spoke.
"How good that tasted!" she said gratefully as she finished, sinking back against my shoulder. I had not only propped her up with pillows, but had sat behind her as she ate, that she might have the support of my body.
"I think I can take a long nap now," she went on. "When I awake sendRichard to me."
I laid her down gently, arranged her pillows, and drew up the covers over her shoulders. She caught my hand and pressed it.
"My own daughter could not have been kinder to me than you have been," she said.
"I am glad to have pleased you, Mrs. Graham," I returned. I suppose my reply sounded stiff, but I could not forget the day she came to us, and her contemptuous rejection of Dicky's proposal that I should call her "Mother."
She frowned slightly. "Forget what I said that day I came," she said quickly. "Call me Mother, that is, if you can."
For a moment I hesitated. The memory of her prejudice against me would not down. Then I had an illuminative look into the narrowness of my own soul. The sight did not please me. With a sudden resolve I bent down and kissed the cheek of my husband's mother.
"Of course, Mother," I said quietly.
It must have been two hours at least that I sat watching the sick woman. She left her hand in mine a long time, then, with a drowsy smile, she drew it away, turned over with her face to the wall, and fell into a restful sleep. I listened to her soft, regular breathing until the sunlight faded and the room darkened.
I must have dozed in my chair, for I did not hear Katie come in or go to the kitchen. The first thing that aroused me was a voice that I knew, the high-pitched tones of Lillian Gale Underwood.
"I tell you, Dicky-bird, it won't do. She's got to know the truth."
As Mrs. Underwood's shrill voice struck my ears, I sprang to my feet in dismay.
My first thought was of the sick woman over whom I was watching. Both Dr. Pettit and the nurse, Miss Sonnot, had warned us that excitement might be fatal to their patient.
And the one thing in the world that might be counted on to excite my mother-in-law was the presence of the woman whose voice I heard in conversation with my husband.
I rose noiselessly from my chair and went into the living room, closing the door after me. Then with my finger lifted warningly for silence I forced a smile of greeting to my lips as Lillian Underwood saw me and came swiftly toward me.
"Dicky's mother is asleep," I said in a low tone. "I am afraid I must ask you to come into the kitchen, for she awakens so easily."
Lillian nodded comprehendingly, but Dicky flushed guiltily as they followed me into the kitchen. Katie had left a few minutes before to run an errand for me.
Dicky's voice interrupted the words Lillian was about to speak to me.I hardly recognized it, hoarse, choked with feeling as it was.
"Lillian," he said, "you shall not do this. There is no need for you to bring all those old, horrible memories back. You have buried them and have had a little peace. If Madge is the woman I take her for she will be generous enough not to ask it, especially when I give her my word of honor that there is nothing in my past or yours which could concern her."
"You have the usual masculine idea of what might concern a woman,"Lillian retorted tartly.
But I answered the appeal I had heard in my husband's voice even more than in his words.
"You do not need to tell me anything, Mrs. Underwood," I said gently, and at the words Dicky moved toward me quickly and put his arm around me.
I flinched at his touch. I could not help it. It was one thing to summon courage to refuse the confidence for which every tortured nerve was calling—it was another to bear the affectionate touch of the man whose whole being I had just heard cry out in attempt to protect this other woman.
Dicky did not notice any shrinking, but Mrs. Underwood saw it. I think sometimes nothing ever escapes her eyes. She came closer to me, gravely, steadily.
"You are very brave, Mrs. Graham, very kind, but it won't do. Dicky, keep quiet." She turned to him authoritatively as he started to speak. "You know how much use there is of trying to stop me when I make up my mind to anything."
She put one hand upon my shoulder.
"Dear child," she said earnestly, "will you trust me till tomorrow? I had thought that I must tell you right away, but your splendid generous attitude makes it possible for me to ask you this. I can see there is no place here where we can talk undisturbed. Besides, I must take no chance of your mother-in-law's finding out that I am here. Will you come to my apartment tomorrow morning any time after 10? Harry will be gone by then, and we can have the place to ourselves."
"I will be there at 10," I said gravely. I felt that her honesty and directness called for an explicit answer, and I gave it to her.
"Thank you." She smiled a little sadly, and then added: "Don't imagine all sorts of impossible things. It isn't a very pretty story, but I am beginning to hope that after you have heard it we may become very real friends."
Preposterous as her words seemed in the light of the things I had heard from the lips of my husband's mother, they gave me a sudden feeling of comfort.
"Well, I suppose we might as well get it over with."
Lillian Underwood and I sat in the big tapestried chairs on either side of the glowing fire in her library. She had instructed Betty, her maid, to bring her neither caller nor telephone message, until our conference should be ended. The two doors leading from the room were locked and the heavy velvet curtains drawn over them, making us absolutely secure from intrusion.
"I suppose so." The answer was banal enough, but it was physically impossible for me to say anything more. My throat was parched, my tongue thick, and I clenched my hands tightly in my lap to prevent their trembling.
Mrs. Underwood gave me a searching glance, then reached over and laid her warm, firm hand over mine.
"See here, my child," she said gently, "this will never do. Before I tell you this story there is something you must be sure of. Look at me. No matter what else you may think of me do you believe me to be capable of telling you a falsehood when a make a statement to you upon my honor?"
Her eyes met mine fairly and squarely. Mrs. Underwood has wonderful eyes, blue-gray, expressive. They shone out from the atrocious mask of make-up which she always uses, and I unreservedly accepted the message they carried to me.
"I am sure you would not deceive me," I returned quickly, and meant it.
"Thank you. Then before I begin my story I am going to assure you of one thing, upon—my—honor."
She spoke slowly, impressively, her eyes never wavering from mine.
"You have heard rumors about Dicky and me; you will hear things from me today which will show you that the rumors were justified in part, and yet—I want you to believe me when I tell you that there is nothing in any past association of your husband and myself which would make either of us ashamed to look you straight in the eyes."
I believed her! I would challenge anyone in the world to look into those clear, honest eyes and doubt their owner's truth.
There was a long minute when I could not speak. I had not known the full measure of what I feared until her words lifted the burden from my soul.
Then I had my moment, recognized it, rose to it. I leaned forward and returned the earnest gaze of the woman opposite to me.
"Dear Mrs. Underwood," I said. "Why tell me any more? I am perfectly satisfied with what you have just told me. Be sure that no rumors will trouble me again."
Her clasp of my hand tightened until my rings hurt my flesh. Into her face came a look of triumph.
"I knew it," she said jubilantly. "I could have banked on you. You're a big woman, my dear, and I believe we are going to be real friends."
She loosened her clasp of my hands, leaned back in her chair and looked for a long, meditative moment at the fire.
"You cannot imagine how much easier your attitude makes the telling of my story," she began finally.
"But I just assured you that there was no need for the telling," I interrupted.
"I know. But it is your right to know, and it will be far better if you are put in possession of the facts. It is an ugly story. I think I had better tell you the worst of it first."
I marvelled at the look that swept across her face. Bitter pain and humiliation were written there so plainly that I looked away. Then my eyes fell upon her strong, white, shapely hands which were resting upon the arms of the chair. They were strained, bloodless, where the fingers gripped the tapestried surface.
When she spoke, her voice was low, hurried, abashed. "Seven years ago," she said, "my first husband sued me for divorce, and named Dicky as a co-respondent."
I sprang from my seat.
"Oh, no, no, no," I cried, hardly knowing what I said. "Surely not. I remember reading the old story when you were married to Mr. Underwood, three years ago—I've always admired your work so much that I've read every line about you—and surely Dicky's name wasn't mentioned. I would have remembered it when I met him, I know."
"There, there." She was on her feet beside me and with a gentle yet compelling hand put me back in my chair. Her voice had the same tone a mother would use to a grieving child. "Dicky's name wasn't mentioned when the story was printed the last time, because at the time the divorce was granted, Mr. Morten withdrew the accusation that he had made against him."
"Why?" The question left my lips almost without volition. I sensed something tragic, full of meaning for me behind the statement she had made.
She did not answer me for a minute or two.
"I can only answer that question on your word of honor not to tell Dicky what I am going to tell you," she said. "It is something he suspects, but which I would never confirm."
She paused expectantly. "Upon honor, of course," I answered simply.
She rose and moved swiftly toward one of the built-in bookcases. I saw that she put her hand upon one of the sections and pulled upon it. To my astonishment it moved toward her, and I saw that behind it was a cleverly constructed wall safe. She turned the combination, opened the door and took from the safe an inlaid box which, as she came toward me, I saw was made of rare old woods.
She sat down again in the big chair and looked at the box musingly, tenderly. I leaned forward expectantly. Again I had the sense of tragedy near me.
Drawing the key from her dress she opened the box and took from it a miniature, gazed at it a minute, and then handed it to me.
"Oh, Mrs. Underwood," I exclaimed. "How exquisite."
The miniature was of the most beautiful child I had ever seen, a tiny girl of perhaps two years. She stood poised as if running to meet one, her baby arms outstretched. It was a picture to delight or break a mother's heart.
I looked up from the miniature to the face of the woman who had handed it to me.
"Yes," she answered my unspoken query, "my little daughter; my only child. She is the price I paid for Dicky's immunity from the scandal which the unjust man that I called husband brought upon me."
My first impulse was one of horror-stricken sympathy for her. Then came the reaction. A flaming jealousy enveloped me from head to foot.
"How she must have loved Dicky to do this for him!" The thought beat upon my brain like a sledge hammer.
"Don't think that, my dear, for it isn't true." I had not spoken, but with her almost uncanny ability to divine the thoughts of other people she had fathomed mine. "I was always fond of Dicky, but I never was in love with him."
"Then why did you make such a sacrifice?" I stammered.
"Why! There was absolutely no other way," she said, opening her wonderful eyes wide in amazement that I had not at once grasped her point of view. "Dicky was absolutely innocent of any wrongdoing, but through a combination of circumstances of which I shall tell you, my husband had gathered a show of evidence which would have won him the divorce if it had been presented."
"He bargained with me: I to give up all claim to the baby. He to withdraw Dicky's name, and all other charges except that of desertion. Thus Dicky was saved a scandal which would have followed and hampered him all his life, and I was spared the fastening of a shameful verdict upon me. Of course, everybody who read about the case and did not know me, believed me guilty anyway, but my friends stood by me gallantly, and that part of it is all right. But every time I look at that baby face I am tempted to wish that I had let honor, the righting of Dicky, everything go by the boards, and had taken my chance of having her, even if it were only part of the time."
Her voice was rough, uneven as she finished speaking, but that was the only evidence of the emotion which I knew must have her stretched upon the rack.
Right there I capitulated to Lillian Underwood. Always, through my dislike and distrust of her, there had struggled an admiration which would not down, even when I thought I had most cause to fear her.
But this revelation of the real bigness of the woman caught my allegiance and fixed it. She had sacrificed the thing which was most precious to her to keep her ideal of honor unsullied. I felt that I could never have made a similar sacrifice, but I mentally saluted her for her power to do it.
I realized, too, the reason for Dicky's deference to Mrs. Underwood, which had often puzzled and sometimes angered me. Once when she had given him a raking over for the temper he displayed toward me in her presence, he had said:
"You know I couldn't get angry at you, no matter what you said; I owe you too much."
I had wondered at the time what it was that my husband "owed" Mrs.Underwood. The riddle was solved for me at last.
I am not an impetuous woman, and I do not know how I ever mustered up courage to do it. But the sight of Lillian Underwood's face as she looked at her baby's picture was too much for me. Without any conscious volition on my part I found my arms around her, and her face pressed against my shoulder.
I expected a storm of grief, for I knew the woman had been holding herself in with an iron hand. But only a few convulsive movements of her shoulders betrayed her emotion and when she raised her face to mine her eyes were less tear-bedewed than my own.
Something stirred me to quick questioning.
"Oh, is there a chance of your having her again?"
"I am always hoping for it," she answered quietly. "When her father married again, several years ago—that was before my marriage to Harry—I hoped against hope that he would give her to me. For he knew—the hound—knew better than anybody else that all his vile charges were false."
Her eyes blazed, her voice was strident, her hands clasped and unclasped. Then, as if a string had been loosened, she sank back in her chair again.
"But he would not give her to me," she went on dully, "and he could not even if he would. For his mother, who has the child, is old and devoted to her. It would kill her to take Marion away from her."
"You saw my pink room?" she demanded abruptly.
I nodded. The memory of that rose-colored nest and the look in my hostess's eyes when on my other visit she had said she had prepared the room for a young girl was yet vivid.
"I spent weeks preparing it for her when I heard of her father's remarriage," she said, "When I finally realized that I could not have her, I lay ill for weeks in it. On my recovery I vowed that no one else but she or I should ever sleep there. I have another bedroom where I sleep most of the time. But sometimes I go in there and spend the night, and pretend that I have her little body snuggled up close to me just as it used to be."
The crackling of the logs in the grate was the only sound to be heard for many minutes.
With her elbow resting on the arm of her chair, her chin cupped in her hand, her whole body leaning toward the warmth of the fire, she sat gazing into the leaping flames as if she were trying to read in them the riddle of the future.
I patiently waited on her mood. That she would open her heart to me further I knew, but I did not wish to disturb her with either word or movement.
"I might as well begin at the beginning." There was a note in her voice that all at once made me see the long years of suffering which had been hers. "Only the beginning is so commonplace that it lacks interest. It is the record of a very mediocre stenographer with aspirations."
That she was speaking of herself her tone told me, but I was genuinely surprised. Mrs. Underwood was the last woman in the world one would picture as holding down a stenographer's position.
"I can't remember when I didn't have in the back of my brain the idea of learning to draw," she went on, "but it took years and years of uphill work and saving to get a chance. I was an orphan, with nobody to care whether I lived or died, and nothing but my own efforts to depend on. But I stuck to it, working in the daytime and studying evenings and holidays till at last I began to get a foothold, and then when I had enough to put by to risk it I went to Paris."
Her voice was as matter of fact as if she were describing a visit to the family butcher shop. But I visualized the busy, plucky years with their reward of Paris as if I had been a spectator of them.
"Of course, by the time I got there I was almost old enough to be the mother, or, at least, the elder sister of most of the boys and girls I met, and I had learned life and experience in a good, hard school. Some of the youngsters got the habit of coming to me with all their troubles, fancied or real. I made some stanch friends in those days, but never a stancher, truer one than Dicky Graham.
"Tell me, dear girl, when you were teaching those history classes, did any of your boy pupils fall in love with you?"
I answered her with an embarrassed little laugh. Her question called up memories of shy glances, gifts of flowers and fruit, boyish confidences—all the things which fall to the lot of any teacher of boys.
"Well, then, you will understand me when I tell you that in the studio days in Paris Dicky imagined himself quite in love with me."
There was something in her tone and manner which took all the sting out of her words for me. All the jealousy and real concern which I had spent on this old attachment of my husband for Mrs. Underwood vanished as I listened to her. She might have been Dicky's mother, speaking of his early and injudicious fondness for green apples.
"I shall always be proud of the way I managed Dicky that time." Her voice still held the amused maternal note. "It's so easy for an older woman to spoil a boy's life in a case like that if she's despicable enough to do it. But, you see, I was genuinely fond of Dicky, and yet not the least bit in love with him, and I was able, without his guessing it, to keep the management of the affair in my own hands. So when he woke up, as boys always do, to the absurdity of the idea, there was nothing in his recollections of me to spoil our friendship.
"Then there came the early days of my struggle to get a foothold in New York in my line. There were thousands of others like me. Six or seven of the strugglers had been my friends in Paris. We formed a sort of circle, "for offence and defence," Dicky called it; settled down near each other, and for months we worked and played and starved together. When one of us sold anything we all feasted while it lasted. I tell you, my dear, those were strenuous times but they had a zest of their own."
I saw more of the picture she was revealing than she thought I did. I could guess that the one who most often sold anything was the woman who was so calmly telling me the story of those early hardships. I knew that the dominant member of that little group of stragglers, the one who heartened them all, the one who would unhesitatingly go hungry herself if she thought a comrade needed it, was Lillian Underwood.
"And then I spoiled my life. I married."
"Don't misunderstand me," she hastened to say. "I do not mean that I believe all marriages are failures. I believe tremendously in married happiness, but I think I must be one of the women who are temperamentally unfitted to make any man happy."
Her tone was bitter, self-accusing.
"You cannot make me believe that," I said stoutly. "I would rather believe that you were very unwise in your choice of husbands."
She laughed ironically.
"Well, we will let it go at that! At any rate there is only one word that describes my first marriage. It was hell from start to finish."
The look on her face told me she was not exaggerating. It was a look, only graven by intense suffering.
"When the baby came my feeling for Will changed. He had worn me out. The love I had given him I lavished upon the child. Will's mother came to live with us—she had been drifting around miserably before—and while she failed me at the time of the divorce, yet she was a tower of strength to me during the baby's infancy. I was very fond of her and I think she sincerely liked me. But Will, her only son, could always make her believe black was white, as I later found out to my sorrow.
"With the vanishing of the hectic love I had felt for Will, things went more smoothly with me. I worked like a slave to keep up the expenses of the home and to lay by something for the baby's future. My husband was away so much that the boys and girls gradually came back to something like their old term of intimacy. I never gave the matter of propriety a thought. My mother-in-law, a baby and a maid, were certainly chaperons enough.
"Afterward I found out that my husband, equipped with his legal knowledge, had set all manner of traps for me, had bribed my maid, and diabolically managed to twist the most innocent visits of the boys of the old crowd to our home to his own evil meanings.
"Then came the crash. Dicky came in one Sunday afternoon and I saw at once that he was really ill. You know his carelessness. He had let a cold go until he was as near pneumonia as he could well be. A sleet storm was raging outside, and when Dicky, after shivering before the fire, started to go back to his studio, Will's mother, who liked Dicky immensely, joined with me in insisting that he must not go out at all, but to bed. Dicky was really too ill to care what we did with him, so we got him into bed, and I took care of him for two or three days until he was well enough to leave.
"Of course, the greater part of his care fell on me, for Will's mother was old and not strong. I am not going to tell you the accusations which my unspeakable husband made against me, or the affidavits which the maid was bribed to sign about Dicky and me. You can guess. Worst of all, Will's mother turned against me, not because of anything she had observed, but simply because her son told her I was guilty.
"'I never would have thought it of you, Lillian,' she said to me with the tears streaming down her wrinkled, old face. 'I never saw anything out of the way, but of course Will wouldn't lie. And I loved you so.'
"Poor old woman. Those last few words of affection made it easier for me to give the baby up to her when the time came. She idolizes Marion. She gives her the best of care, and I do not think she will teach her to hate me as Will would.