“You’re looking cross and unhappy,” said she.  “What’s the matter?  Business?”

“No—­everything’s going well.”

“Same thing that’s troubling Dorothy, then?”

“Is Dorothy ill?” inquired he, suddenly as alert as he had been absent.  “She hasn’t let me know anything about it.”

“Ill?  Of course not,” reassured Ursula.  “She’s never ill.  But—­I’ve not anywhere or ever seen two people as crazy about each other as you and she.”

“Really?” Norman had relapsed into interest in what he was eating.

“You live all alone down there in the country.  You treat anyone who comes to see you as intruder.  And as soon as darling husband goes away, darling wife wanders about like a damned soul.  Honestly, it gave me the blues to look at her eyes.  And I used to think she cared more about the baby than about you.”

“She’s probably worried about something else,” said Norman.  “More salad?  No?  There’s no dessert—­at least I’ve ordered none.  But if you’d like some strawberries——­”

“I thought of that,” replied Ursula, not to be deflected.  “I mean of her being upset about something beside you.  I’m slow to suspect anyone of really caring about any one else.  But, although she didn’t confess, I soon saw that it was your absence.  And she wasn’t putting on for my benefit, either.  My maid hears the same thing from all the servants.”

“This is pleasant,” said Norman in his mocking good-humored way.

“And you’re in the same state,” she charged with laughing but sympathetic eyes.  “Why, Fred, you’re as madly in love with her as ever.”

“I wonder,” said he reflectively.

“Why didn’t you bring her with you?”

He stared at his sister like a man who has just discovered that he, with incredible stupidity, had overlooked the obvious.  “I didn’t think I’d be away long,” evaded he.

He saw Ursula off for the Continent, half promised to join her in a few weeks at Aix.  A day or so after her departure he had a violent fit of blues, was haunted by a vision of the baby and the comfortable, peaceful house on Long Island.  He had expected to stay about two months longer.  “I’m sick of England and of hotels,” he said, and closed up his business and sailed the following week.

* * * * *

She and the baby were at the pier to meet him.  He looked for signs of the mourning Ursula had described, but he looked in vain.  Never had he seen her lovelier, or so sparkling.  And how she did talk!—­rattling on and on, with those interesting commonplaces of domestic event—­the baby, the household, the garden, the baby—­the horses, the dogs, the baby—­the servants, her new dresses, the baby—­and so on, and so on—­and the baby.

But when they got into the motor at Hempstead station for the drive home, silence fell upon her—­he had been almost silent from the start of the little journey.  As the motor swung into the grounds, looking their most beautiful for his homecoming, an enormous wave of pure delight began to surge up in him, to swell, to rush, to break, dashing its spray of tears into his eyes.  He turned his head away to hide the too obvious display of feeling.  They went into the house, he carrying the baby.  He gave it to the nurse—­and he and she were alone.