She looked up in surprise as I stood in the doorway. A
little coldly, I thought, she came forward to meet me, but her manner
changed as she took my hand.
"I was going to scold you, Charlie, for avoiding us, for staying away
so long, but that is accounted for now. Why didn't you send us word
that you were ill? Papa is a capital nurse."
"But I have not been ill," I said, bewildered, "only very busy and
very anxious."
"I should think so," still holding my hand, and looking into my face
with an expression of deep concern. "Poor fellow! You do look worn.
Come right here to this chair by the fire, and let me take care of
you. You need rest."
And she rang the bell. I suffered myself to be installed in the soft
crimson chair by the fire. It was such a comfort to hear a friendly
voice after all those lonely weeks! When the servant entered with a
tray, I watched her movements over the tea-cups with a delicious sense
of the womanly presence and the home-feeling stealing over me.
"I can't imagine what keeps papa," she said, chatting away with
woman's tact: "he always smokes after dinner, and comes up to me for
his cup of tea afterward."
Then, as she handed me a tiny porcelain cup, steaming and fragrant, "I
should never have congratulated you, Charlie, on board the steamer if
I had known it was going to end in this way.
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