She meant "necessary," but she wanted so much more sleep she never knew
the difference. When she got into her room she found that there also she
was not alone: the wistful wolfhound was curled plaintively across her
bed, which he overlapped. From his nose he seemed to have been dipping
largely into the cup of chocolate somebody had brought to her, and which
she had forgotten to drink when she found it, on her first retiring.
"You aren't a _bit_ high-minded," said Phyllis indignantly. She was too
sleepy to do more than shove him over to the back of the bed. "All--the
beds here are so--_full_," she complained sleepily; and crawled inside,
and never woke again till nearly afternoon.
There was all the grave business to be done, in the days that followed,
of taking Mrs. Harrington to a quiet place beside her husband, and
drawing together again the strings of the disorganized household.
Phyllis found herself whispering over and over again:
"The sweeping up the heart
And putting love away
We shall not need to use again.
Until the Judgment Day."
And with all there was to see after, it was some days before she saw
Allan again, more than to speak to brightly as she crossed their common
sitting-room. He did not ask for her. She looked after his comfort
faithfully, and tried to see to it that his man Wallis was all he should
be--a task which was almost hopeless from the fact that Wallis knew much
more about his duties than she did, even with Mrs. Harrington's
painstakingly detailed notes to help her. Also his attitude to his
master was of such untiring patience and worship that it made Phyllis
feel like a rude outsider interfering between man and wife.
However, Wallis was inclined to approve of his new mistress, who was
not fussy, seemed kind, and had given his beloved Mr. Allan nearly three
hours of unbroken sleep. Allan had been a little better ever since.
Wallis had told Phyllis this. But she was inclined to think that the
betterment was caused by the counter-shock of his mother's death, which
had shaken him from his lethargy, and perhaps even given his nerves a
better balance. And she insisted that the pink paper stay on the
electric lights.
After about a week of this, Phyllis suddenly remembered that she had not
been selfish at all yet. Where was her rose-garden--the garden she had
married the wolfhound and Allan and the check-book for? Where were all
the things she had intended to get? The only item she had bought as yet
ran, on the charge account she had taken over with the rest, "1 doz.
checked dish-towels"; and Mrs. Clancy, the housekeeper's, pressing
demand was responsible for these.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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