She thought
that she must get him by himself quickly and tell him her side of that
hospital story, before her mother and Judith began on any virtuous
raptures over it.
But there was no consecutive talk about anything after they all were
joyfully gathered in their ugly, commonplace boarding-house bedroom.
They loosened collars and belts, washed their perspiring and dusty
faces, and brushed hair, to the tune of a magpie chatter. Sylvia did
not realize that she and her father were the main sources of this
volubility, she did not realize how she had missed his exuberance, she
only knew that she felt a weight lifted from her heart. She had been
telling him with great enjoyment of the comic opera they had seen, as
she finished putting the hairpins into her freshly smoothed hair, and
turned, a pin still in her mouth, in time to be almost abashed by the
expression in his eyes as he suddenly drew his wife to him.
"Jove! Barbara!" he cried, half laughing, but with a quiver in his
voice, "it's hell to be happily married! A separation is--well, never
mind about it. I came along anyhow! And now I'm here I'll go to see
Vic of course."
"No, you won't," said Judith promptly. "She's gone back. To get Arnold
out of a scrape."
Mrs. Marshall explained further, and incidentally touched upon her
sister-in-law's views of the relation between expensive boys' schools
and private tutors.
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