Page:A Good Woman (1927).pdf/159

 conferences with many other married ladies upon a subject which she always found absorbing, that reduced Naomi at length to a calmer state of mind. And Mabelle was sitting by her now, nursing the baby, and pouring forth details of her own history, in an effort to forestall fresh outbursts.

Downstairs, in the dining-room and kitchen, Emma bustled about, scolding the slattern Essie, and thinking that it was just like Naomi to have chosen such a busy and awkward occasion for following her advice. So Emma had to look after all the refreshments herself. She was putting out the plates of fruit salad on the dining-room table, when she heard the knob of the front door turn. Pausing in her work, she saw the door open, gently and carefully, as Philip entered. His foot caught on the carpet, he tripped and fell.

In the next moment she knew. He was drunk. He couldn't get to his feet.

Behind the closed doors of the parlor the thin, refined voice of Mrs. Wilbert Phipps was saying, "And then the guide caught some fish in a net and showed them to us. They proved most interesting, as they were quite without eyes, and therefore blind. It seems that living so long in the darkness the eyes shriveled up in succeeding generations until they disappeared. I remember saying to Wilbert: 'Think of it! These fish are quite blind!

Philip, struggling to his feet, heard the word "blind." "Yes, I was blind too. But I'm not any longer. Naomi made a man of me. She made a man of me."

He laughed wildly, and Emma, clapping a hand over his mouth, put her arm about his shoulders and guided him up the stairs. She helped to undress him and put