“How did you sleep last night?” he said,
in a highly professional and very distinct voice.
Then he kissed her.
“Very badly, doctor,” she said, also very
clearly, and whispered, “I lay awake and thought
about you, dear.”
“I’d better give you this sleeping powder.”
Oh, frightfully professional, but the powder turned
out to be another kiss. It was a wonderful game.
When she slipped out into the hall she had to stop
and smooth her hair, before she went to Lucy’s
tidy sitting-room.
It was Jim Wheeler’s turn to take up the shuttle.
A girl met in some casual fashion; his own youth
and the urge of it, perhaps the unconscious family
indulgence of an only son—and Jim wove his
bit and passed on.
There had been mild contention in the Wheeler family
during all the spring. Looking out from his
quiet windows Walter Wheeler saw the young world going
by a-wheel, and going fast. Much that legitimately
belonged to it, and much that did not in the laxness
of the new code, he laid to the automobile.
And doggedly he refused to buy one.
“We can always get a taxicab,” was his
imperturbable answer to Jim. “I pay pretty
good-sized taxi bills without unpleasant discussion.
I know you pretty well too, Jim. Better than
you know yourself. And if you had a car, you’d
try your best to break your neck in it.”
Now and then Jim got a car, however. Sometimes
he rented one, sometimes he cajoled Nina into lending
him hers.
“A fellow looks a fool without one,” he
would say to her. “Girls expect to be
taken out. It’s part of the game.”
And Nina, always reached by that argument of how things
looked, now and then reluctantly acquiesced.
But a night or two after David and Lucy had started
for the seashore Nina came in like a whirlwind, and
routed the family peace immediately.
“Father,” she said, “you just must
speak to Jim. He’s taken our car twice
at night without asking for it, and last night he broke
a spring. Les is simply crazy.”
“Taken your car!” Mrs. Wheeler exclaimed.
“Yes. I hate telling on him, but I spoke
to him after the first time, and he did it anyhow.”
Mrs. Wheeler glanced at her husband uneasily.
She often felt he was too severe with Jim.
“Don’t worry,” he said grimly.
“He’ll not do it again.”
“If we only had a car of our own—”
Mrs. Wheeler protested.
“You know what I think about that, mother.
I’m not going to have him joy-riding over the
country, breaking his neck and getting into trouble.
I’ve seen him driving Wallace Sayre’s
car, and he drives like a fool or a madman.”
It was an old dispute and a bitter one. Mr.
Wheeler got up, whistled for the dog, and went out.
His wife turned on Nina.
“I wish you wouldn’t bring these things
to your father, Nina,” she said. “He’s
been very nervous lately, and he isn’t always
fair to Jim.”
