“I guess I’ve fixed her,” she said
to herself.
Her very soul was sick with fear of what she had done.
K. saw Sidney for only a moment on Christmas Day.
This was when the gay little sleigh had stopped in
front of the house.
Sidney had hurried radiantly in for a moment.
Christine’s parlor was gay with firelight and
noisy with chatter and with the clatter of her tea-cups.
K., lounging indolently in front of the fire, had
turned to see Sidney in the doorway, and leaped to
his feet.
“I can’t come in,” she cried.
“I am only here for a moment. I am out
sleigh-riding with Dr. Wilson. It’s perfectly
delightful.”
“Ask him in for a cup of tea,” Christine
called out. “Here’s Aunt Harriet
and mother and even Palmer!”
Christine had aged during the last weeks, but she
was putting up a brave front.
“I’ll ask him.”
Sidney ran to the front door and called: “Will
you come in for a cup of tea?”
“Tea! Good Heavens, no. Hurry.”
As Sidney turned back into the house, she met Palmer.
He had come out in the hall, and had closed the door
into the parlor behind him. His arm was still
in splints, and swung suspended in a gay silk sling.
The sound of laughter came through the door faintly.
“How is he to-day?” He meant Johnny, of
course. The boy’s face was always with
him.
“Better in some ways, but of course—”
“When are they going to operate?”
“When he is a little stronger. Why don’t
you come into see him?”
“I can’t. That’s the truth.
I can’t face the poor youngster.”
“He doesn’t seem to blame you; he says
it’s all in the game.”
“Sidney, does Christine know that I was not
alone that night?”
“If she guesses, it is not because of anything
the boy has said. He has told nothing.”
Out of the firelight, away from the chatter and the
laughter, Palmer’s face showed worn and haggard.
He put his free hand on Sidney’s shoulder.
“I was thinking that perhaps if I went away—”
“That would be cowardly, wouldn’t it?”
“If Christine would only say something and get
it over with! She doesn’t sulk; I think
she’s really trying to be kind. But she
hates me, Sidney. She turns pale every time I
touch her hand.”
All the light had died out of Sidney’s face.
Life was terrible, after all—overwhelming.
One did wrong things, and other people suffered; or
one was good, as her mother had been, and was left
lonely, a widow, or like Aunt Harriet. Life
was a sham, too. Things were so different from
what they seemed to be: Christine beyond the
door, pouring tea and laughing with her heart in ashes;
Palmer beside her, faultlessly dressed and wretched.
The only one she thought really contented was K. He
seemed to move so calmly in his little orbit.
He was always so steady, so balanced. If life
held no heights for him, at least it held no depths.
