at the sky and at you nodding and perking all around me--and not do a
living thing all day but just lie there and soak in blue and gold and
sweet smells and silence."

Peter, coming to the open doorway, turned and tiptoed back as though he
had intruded upon some secret, and stood irresolutely smoothing his hair
down with the flat of his hand until she called him to come and eat. She
was cheerful as ever while she served him scrupulously. She smiled at him
now and then, tilting her head because the daffodils stood between them.
She said no more about the doctor's advice, or the problem of poverty.
She did not cough, and the movements of her thin, well-shaped hands were
sure and swift. More than once she made a pause while she pulled a
daffodil toward her and gazed adoringly into its yellow cup.

Peter might have been reassured, were it not for the telltale flush on
her cheeks and the unnatural shine in her eyes. As it was, every
fascinating little whimsy of hers stabbed him afresh with the pain of her
need and of his helplessness. Arizona or New Mexico or Colorado, the
doctor had said; and Peter knew that it must be so. And he with his
druggist's salary and his pitiful two hundred dollars in the savings
bank! And with the druggist's salary stopping automatically the moment he
stopped reporting for duty! Peter was neither an atheist nor a socialist,
yet he was close to cursing his God and his country whenever Helen May
smiled at him around the dozen daffodils.

"Your insurance is due the tenth, dad," she remarked irrelevantly when
they had reached the dessert stage of cream puffs from the delicatessen
nearest Helen May's work. "Why don't you cut it down? It's sinful, the
amount of money we've paid out for insurance. You need a new suit this
spring. And the difference--"