The motion was briskly seconded, and a few minutes later Sidney found herself freed from the babel of voices and walking home with nervous rapidity.  “Well, that’s over!” she said once or twice aloud.  “Thank Heaven, it’s over!”

“Is your head better, Mother?” said Joanna, who had been hanging on the Hall gate waiting for her mother, and who put an affectionate arm about her as they walked up the path.  “You look better.”

“Jo,” said Mrs. Burgoyne seriously, “there’s one sure cure for the blues in this world.  I recommend it to you, for it’s safer than cocaine, and just as sure.  Go and do something you don’t want to—­ for somebody else.”

CHAPTER XVI

It was no pleasant prospect of a reunion at the club, or an evening with his old friends, that had taken Barry Valentine so suddenly to San Francisco, but a letter from his wife—­or, rather, from his wife’s mother, for Hetty herself never wrote—­which had stirred a vague distrust and discomfort in his mind.  Mrs. Scott, his mother-in-law, was a worldly, shrewd little person, but good-hearted, and as easily moved or stirred as a child.  This was one of her characteristic letters, disconnected, ill-spelled, and scrawled upon scented lavender paper.  She wrote that she and Hetty were sick of San Francisco, and they wanted Barry’s permission to sell the Mission Street flats that afforded them a living, and go away once and for all.  Het, her mother wrote, had had a fine offer for the houses; Barry’s signature only was needed to close the deal.

All this might be true; it sounded reasonable enough; but, somehow, Barry fancied that it was not true, or at least that it was only partly so.  What did Hetty want the money for, he wondered.  Why should her mother reiterate so many times that if Barry for any possible reason disapproved, he was not to give the matter another thought; they most especially wanted only his simple yes or no.  Why this consideration?  Hetty had always been persistent enough about the things she wanted before.  “I know you would consent if you could see how our hearts are set on this,” wrote Mrs. Scott, “but if you say ‘no,’ that ends it.”

“Sure, I’ll sell,” Barry said, putting the letter in his pocket.  But it came persistently between him and his work.  What mischief was Hetty in, he wondered.  Had some get-rich-quick shark got hold of her; it was extremely likely.  He could not shake the thought of her from his mind, her voice, her pretty, sullen little face, rose again and haunted him.  What a child she had been, and what a boy he was, and how mistaken the whole bitter experience!

Walking home late at night, the memory of old days rode him like a hateful nightmare.  He saw the little untidy flat they had had in New York; the white winter outside, and a deeper chill within; little Billy coughing and restless; Hetty practising her scales, and he, Barry, trying to write at one end of the dining-room table.  He remembered how disappointment and restless ambition had blotted out her fresh, babyish beauty; how thin and sharp her voice had grown as the months went on.