Page:Glimpses of the Moon (Wharton 1922).djvu/346

336 pride a little to keep from him the secret of her precarious independence.

He looked his wonder. "All alone with that bewildered bonne? But how many of them are there? Five? Good Lord!" He contemplated the clock with unseeing eyes, and then turned them again on her face.

"I should have thought a lot of children would rather get on your nerves."

"Oh, not these children. They're so good to me."

"Ah, well, I suppose it won't be for long."

He sent his eyes again about the room, which his absent-minded gaze seemed to reduce to its dismal constituent elements, and added, with an obvious effort at small talk: "I hear the Fulmers are not hitting it off very well since his success. Is it true that he's going to marry Violet Melrose?"

The blood rose to Susy's face. "Oh, never, never! He and Grace are travelling together now."

"Oh, I didn't know. People say things. " He was visibly embarrassed with the subject, and sorry that he had broached it.

"Some of the things that people say are true. But Grace doesn't mind. She says she and Nat belong to each other. They can't help it, she thinks, after having been through such a lot together."

"Dear old Grace!"