"The fact that she does bear it shows that she can; but it must be hard for a woman, who has lived as she has, to be brought to want."
"Want? Isn't that a strong word? One isn't in want unless one is without food and shelter."
"She has the shelter for the time being; I'm not sure that she always has the food."
"What? You don't know what you're saying."
"I know exactly what I'm saying; and I mean exactly what I say. There have been days when I've suspected that she's pinching in the essentials of meat and drink."
"She has two; but they must pay her very little. It's dreadful for people who have as much as we to have to look on at the tragedy of others going hungry--"
Striding to a window, he stood with his back to her, staring out.
"I'm not piling it on, Derek. I wish I were."
"Well, can't we do something? If it's as you say, they mustn't be left like that."
"It's a very delicate matter. The mother-in-law has money of her own; but Diane has nothing. It's difficult to see what to do, except to find her a situation."
"In any case," he said, in the aggressive tone of a man putting forward a weak final argument, "you couldn't leave the mother-in-law all alone."
"I'd take her," Lucilla said, promptly. "You have no idea how much I want her, in this big, empty house. It's getting to be more than I can do to take care of Aunt Regina all alone."
Minutes went by in silence; but when Derek turned from the window and spoke, Lucilla shrank with constitutional fear from the responsibility she had assumed.
"Go and ring them up, and tell young Mrs. Eveleth I'm waiting to see her here."
"I'm quite sure. Please go and ring them up."
"But, Derek, you're so startling. Have you reflected?"
"It's quite decided. Please do as I say, and call them up."
"But if anything were to go wrong in the future you'd think it was my--"
"I shall think nothing of the kind. Don't say any more about it, but please go and tell Diane I'm waiting."
The use of this name being more convincing to Lucilla than pledges of assurance, she sped away to do his bidding; but it was not till after she had gone that Derek recognized the fact that the word had passed his lips.
During the half-hour before the arrival of Mrs. Eveleth and Diane, Miss Lucilla's tact allowed Derek to have the library to himself. He was thus enabled to co-ordinate his thoughts, and enact the laws which must henceforth regulate his domestic life. It was easy to silence the voice that for an instant accused him of taking this step in order to provide Diane Eveleth with a home; for Dorothea's need of a strong hand over her was imperative. He had reached the point where that circumstance could no longer be ignored. The avowal that the child had passed beyond his control would have had more bitterness in it, were it not for the fact that her naïve self-sufficiency touched his sense of humor, while her dainty beauty wakened his paternal pride.