Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/85

 terrible to think that such parents should have such a child! . ..

"Poor dear Bruce," she said. "Switzerland was such a disappointment to him. And he was a lamb about it. We had counted on doing the Mer de Glace and Mont Blanc—and crack went my wretched back so that the least little uphill work was too much for me. . . . Bruce made me go to a great specialist in Lausanne—such a dear, wise man—Doctor Schminnelpfenning. He said that a woman's back is one of the greatest mysteries of creation—one of the most delicate and subtle of all mechanisms. . . . But it was very disappointing—very. He said that there was nothing to be done . . . I'll always have it—the trouble, I mean. It may not come on me for months at a time—or I might have a crick in the next five minutes . . . The maddening thing is that it is not really serious—just painful and upsetting. But Bruce and I are not going to let it make any difference in our lives, are we?"

"Of course not," said Bruce with loyal adoration. "But it kills me to see her suffer."

"When I have an attack," said Ruth, "Bruce is so gentle that you might think I was a basket of eggs."

"In Rome," said Bruce, "she fainted dead away!"