It took him out of his own trouble, but while the men in Carrington congratulated themselves on their foresight in having “Harrison on the job up there,” Dick changed rather visibly. His step did not have so much spring and the youth which he had carried so blithely in his face until this age of thirty-seven seemed quite gone. CHAPTER XXIX Cecily was home when Ellen brought the children back from the train. “Where have you all been?” she asked, pulling Leslie’s cap off and patting the rosy, wind-blown cheeks. Ellen looked at her squarely. “Mr. Harrison telephoned that he was leaving town and would like to see the children. So I took them down to the train.” A flush came over Cecily’s face. “You took them to the train without my permission?” “Their father telephoned me that he would like me to,” answered Ellen, continuing to take off Dorothea’s wraps in the utmost calmness. There was something in Ellen’s assumption which it was impossible to circumvent. There was no answer. He was their father; he had asked to see them; she had no right to prevent it; the thoughts skimmed through Cecily’s mind, disturbed as she was. She said nothing further. Dorothea was full of embarrassing comments on her father that Cecily did not want to hear, but it was impossible to divert her. For several days Dorothea was determined to talk of her father and could not be thrown off the track. It seemed to Cecily that it would be outrageous to forbid her such talk, but she did not like it. She had come to see the difficulties of continuing in her present relations with Dick. It could hardly go on. Some arrangement would have to be made to clear up the vagueness of the situation. She was disagreeably conscious of the lurking feeling among her relatives that Dick and she would “make it up,” and that, she felt angrily, made her position intolerably cheap. It wasn’t a thing which could be “made up.” In those moments when she did toss over in her restless mind the possibilities of living with Dick again, the thought of the smiles of people over the “reconciliation” was intensely irritating. Della had tried to urge her to take some step to see Dick, but gentle as she was with Della these days, Cecily would not allow her to go on.