He laughed. “I’m beginning to see the effects of your nutrition course already.”
“I’ll admit it’s made me food conscious, and I was already point conscious.”
“I must hand it to you women for having a streak of genius with handling rationing points.”
“I’m ashamed to admit it, Dad, but I find myself figuring up point values first and almost forgetting what a thing is going to cost.”
“I’ve had a few worries myself over supplies,” he said, and Kitty saw the furrow deepen between his brows.
“How’s that, Dad?” she asked eagerly, hoping he would open up about what was on his mind.
“Oh, you have problems enough without being burdened with mine,” he said.
Kitty ate the last half of her muffin with some orange-blossom honey, then she sat looking thoughtfully at her father. She had been so absorbed in her own activities lately she had paid scant heed to his failing appetite. Now she realized he had eaten very little for several days.
“Dad, don’t you think you’d better take a tonic or something?” she said finally. “Your appetite is just about gone.”
He tried to laugh off her anxiety. “Oh, I’ll pick up in a day or so. I’ve been rather preoccupied with things at the office.”
His admission gave her a start. “Anything wrong?”
“Nothing that can’t be adjusted in time, I hope.”
“No sense in burdening you with my problems. Kitty. You have enough on your shoulders now.”
“Maybe I could help. Sometimes problems clear up after talking them over with others. Every time I’ve ever brought my troubles to you they seem to vanish in thin air.”
“There’re some things a man can’t talk over with anyone, Kitten, when he’s in the service. He has to keep things from even his own daughter, whom he’d trust with his very life.”
Kitty was now certain that there was something radically wrong. Was it possible that it could in any way be connected with the clues she had picked up in the last few weeks? Willard Dawson, Chief Pharmacist’s Mate, who had just preceded him, had been involved in some sort of trouble at the hospital. Was her father becoming involved in the same sort of complications? The idea that he, also, might be relegated to some remote base, filled Kitty with terror. The life they were living here together seemed a paradise when she feared that something tragic might happen to end it.