“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 protege.

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.