Part 7 (1/2)

bed and sending him to sleep by holding his hands and telling him children's stories. She must have fallen asleep after he did, and slid down on his shoulder. A wonder it hadn't disturbed him! She stole another look at him, as he lay sleeping still, heavily and quietly.

After all, she was married to him, and she had a perfect right to recite him to sleep if she wanted to. She unrolled herself cautiously, and slid out like a shadow.

She almost fell over poor Wallis, sleeping too in his clothes outside the door, on Allan's day couch. He came quickly to his feet, as if he were used to sudden waking.

”Don't disturb Mr. Harrington,” said Phyllis as staidly as if she had been giving men-servants orders in her slipper-feet all her life. ”He seems to be sleeping quietly.”

”Begging your pardon, Mrs. Harrington, but you haven't been giving him anything, have you?” asked Wallis. ”He hasn't slept without a break for two hours to my knowledge since I've been here, not without medicine.”

”Not a thing,” said Phyllis, smiling with satisfaction. ”He must have been sleeping nearly three hours now! I read him to sleep, or what amounted to it. I got his nerves quiet, I think. Please kill anybody that tries to wake him, Wallis.”

”Very good, ma'am,” said Wallis gravely. ”And yourself, ma'am?”

”I'm going to get some sleep, too,” she said. ”Call me if there's anything--useful.”

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 att.i.tude to his master was of such untiring patience and wors.h.i.+p 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.

”It's certainly time I was selfish,” said Phyllis to the wolfhound, who followed her round unendingly as if she had patches of suns.h.i.+ne in her pocket: glorious patches, fit for a life-sized wolfhound. Perhaps he was grateful because she had ordered him long daily walks. He wagged his tail now as she spoke, and rubbed himself curvingly against her. He was a rather affected dog.

So Phyllis made herself out a list in a superlatively neat library hand:

One string of blue beads.

One lot of very fluffy summer frocks with flowers on them.

One rose-garden.

One banjo and a self-teacher. (And a sound-proof room.) One set Arabian Nights.

One set of Stevenson, all but his novels.

Ever so many Maxfield Parrish pictures full of Prussian-blue skies.

A house to put them in, with fireplaces.

A lady's size motor-car that likes me.

A plain cat with a tame disposition.