"
"He has needed you, Teddy; that is a fact. Even the mother can't get on
with him as you do. You're going to stay at home now for a while;
aren't you?"
"Yes; we are going to have a perfect honeymoon of quiet. We have wandered
enough, and we don't mean to budge again for the next ten years. I am
going to write, all day long; and, when twilight falls, Billy and I will
draw our elbow chairs to the fire, and sit and gossip and nod over the
andirons till bedtime. We haven't had an hour to ourselves for five
months, and now we must make up for lost time."
Hubert laughed.
"You are as bad as ever. When do I come in?"
"On Sundays. I expect a McAlister dinner party, every Sunday night.
Otherwise, four times a day. We have three elbow chairs, you know, and
the hearth is a broad one."
"You haven't asked after Phebe," Hubert said, after a pause.
"What was the use? Billy had a letter from his mother, the day we left
Helena, and I knew you would have had nothing later."
"But we have."
"What?"
"She sailed for home, to-day, on the _Kaiserina_."
"Hubert!"
"Theodora?"
"What do you mean?"
"Just that and no more."
"How did you hear?"
"A cable, to-day."
"But Mrs. Farrington said she was going to Italy."
"Perhaps she is."
"Not if she is coming home."
"She isn't."
Theodora looked mystified, as much at the ambiguity of the pronouns as at
the fact itself.
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