The Turmoil | Page 7

New House; and it was to that abode of Bigness that Bibbs was brought when the cane, without the nurse, was found sufficient to his support.
Edith met him at the station. "Well, well, Bibbs!" she said, as he came slowly through the gates, the last of all the travelers from that train. She gave his hand a brisk little shake, averting her eyes after a quick glance at him, and turning at once toward the passage to the street. "Do you think they ought to've let you come? You certainly don't look well!"
"But I certainly do look better," he returned, in a voice as slow as his gait; a drawl that was a necessity, for when Bibbs tried to speak quickly he stammered. "Up to about a month ago it took two people to see me. They had to get me in a line between 'em!"
Edith did not turn her eyes directly toward him again, after her first quick glance; and her expression, in spite of her, showed a faint, troubled distaste, the look of a healthy person pressed by some obligation of business to visit a "bad" ward in a hospital. She was nineteen, fair and slim, with small, unequal features, but a prettiness of color and a brilliancy of eyes that created a total impression close upon beauty. Her movements were eager and restless: there was something about her, as kind old ladies say, that was very sweet; and there was something that was hurried and breathless. This was new to Bibbs; it was a perceptible change since he had last seen her, and he bent upon her a steady, whimsical scrutiny as they stood at the curb, waiting for an automobile across the street to disengage itself from the traffic.
"That's the new car," she said. "Everything's new. We've got four now, besides Jim's. Roscoe's got two."
"Edith, you look--" he began, and paused.
"Oh, WE're all well," she said, briskly; and then, as if something in his tone had caught her as significant, "Well, HOW do I look, Bibbs?"
"You look--" He paused again, taking in the full length of her--her trim brown shoes, her scant, tapering, rough skirt, and her coat of brown and green, her long green tippet and her mad little rough hat in the mad mode--all suited to the October day.
"How do I look?" she insisted.
"You look," he answered, as his examination ended upon an incrusted watch of platinum and enamel at her wrist, "you look--expensive!" That was a substitute for what he intended to say, for her constraint and preoccupation, manifested particularly in her keeping her direct glance away from him, did not seem to grant the privilege of impulsive intimacies.
"I expect I am!" she laughed, and sidelong caught the direction of his glance. "Of course I oughtn't to wear it in the daytime--it's an evening thing, for the theater--by my day wrist-watch is out of gear. Bobby Lamhorn broke it yesterday; he's a regular rowdy sometimes. Do you want Claus to help you in?"
"Oh no," said Bibbs. "I'm alive." And after a fit of panting subsequent to his climbing into the car unaided, he added, "Of course, I have to TELL people!"
"We only got your telegram this morning," she said, as they began to move rapidly through the "wholesale district" neighboring the station. "Mother said she'd hardly expected you this month."
"They seemed to be through with me up there in the country," he explained, gently. "At least they said they were, and they wouldn't keep me any longer, because so many really sick people wanted to get in. They told me to go home --and I didn't have any place else to go. It'll be all right, Edith; I'll sit in the woodshed until after dark every day."
"Pshaw!" She laughed nervously. "Of course we're all of us glad to have you back."
"Yes?" he said. "Father?"
"Of course! Didn't he write and tell you to come home?" She did not turn to him with the question. All the while she rode with her face directly forward.
"No," he said; "father hasn't written."
She flushed a little. "I expect I ought to've written sometime, or one of the boys--"
"Oh no; that was all right."
"You can't think how busy we've all been this year, Bibbs. I often planned to write--and then, just as I was going to, something would turn up. And I'm sure it's been just the same way with Jim and Roscoe. Of course we knew mamma was writing often and--"
"Of course!" he said, readily. "There's a chunk of coal fallen on your glove, Edith. Better flick it off before it smears. My word! I'd almost forgotten how sooty it is here."
"We've been having very bright weather this month--for us." She blew the flake of soot into the air, seeming relieved.
He looked up at the dingy sky, wherein