But Dick thought he understood.  In David’s life his friends had had to take the place of wife and children; he clung to them now, in his age and weakness, and Dick knew that he had a sense of deserting them, of abandoning them after many faithful years.

So David carried with him the calendars and slippers, dressing-gowns and bed-socks which were at once the tangible evidence of their friendliness and Lucy’s despair.

Watching him, Dick was certain nothing further had come to threaten his recovery.  Dick carefully inspected the mail, but no suspicious letter had arrived, and as the days went on David’s peace seemed finally re-established.  He made no more references to Johns Hopkins, slept like a child, and railed almost pettishly at his restricted diet.

“When we get away from Dick, Lucy,” he would say, “we’ll have beef again, and roast pork and sausage.”

Lucy would smile absently and shake her head.

“You’ll stick to your diet, David,” she would say.  “David, it’s the strangest thing about your winter underwear.  I’m sure you had five suits, and now there are only three.”

Or it was socks she missed, or night-clothing.  And David, inwardly chuckling, would wonder with her, knowing all the while that they had clothed some needy body.

On the night before the departure David went out for his first short walk alone, and brought Elizabeth back with him.

“I found a rose walking up the street, Lucy,” he bellowed up the stairs, “and I brought it home for the dinner table.”

Lucy came down, flushed from her final effort over the trunks, but gently hospitable.

“It’s fish night, Elizabeth,” she said.  “You know Minnie’s a Catholic, so we always have fish on Friday.  I hope you eat it.”  She put her hand on Elizabeth’s arm and gently patted it, and thus was Elizabeth taken into the old brick house as one of its own.

Elizabeth was finding this period of her tacit engagement rather puzzling.  Her people puzzled her.  Even Dick did, at times.  And nobody seemed anxious to make plans for the future, or even to discuss the wedding.  She was a little hurt about that, remembering the excitement over Nina’s.

But what chiefly bewildered her was the seeming necessity for secrecy.  Even Nina had not been told, nor Jim.  She did not resent that, although it bewildered her.  Her own inclination was to shout it from the house-tops.  Her father had simply said:  “I’ve told your mother, honey, and we’d better let it go at that, for a while.  There’s no hurry.  And I don’t want to lose you yet.”

But there were other things.  Dick himself varied.  He was always gentle and very tender, but there were times when he seemed to hold himself away from her, would seem aloof and remote, but all the time watching her almost fiercely.  But after that, as though he had tried an experiment in separation and failed with it, he would catch her to him savagely and hold her there.  She tried, very meekly, to meet his mood; was submissive to his passion and acquiescent to those intervals when he withdrew himself and sat or stood near her, not touching her but watching her intently.