"I wonder, sometimes."

"I know it."

Outside the slamming of an automobile door announced Dick's return,
and almost immediately Minnie rang the old fashioned gong which
hung in the lower hall. Mrs. Crosby got up and placed a leaf of
lettuce between the bars of the bird cage.

"Dinner time, Caruso," she said absently. Caruso was the name Dick
had given the bird. And to David: "She must be in her thirties now."

"Probably." Then his anger and anxiety burst out. "What difference
can it make about her? About Donaldson's wife? About any hang-over
from that rotten time? They're gone, all of them. He's here. He's
safe and happy. He's strong and fine. That's gone."

In the lower hall Dick was taking off his overcoat.

"Smell's like chicken, Minnie," he said, into the dining room.

"Chicken and biscuits, Mr. Dick."

"Hi, up there!" he called lustily. "Come and feed a starving man.
I'm going to muffle the door-bell!"

He stood smiling up at them, very tidy in his Sunday suit, very
boyish, for all his thirty-two years. His face, smilingly tender
as he watched them, was strong rather than handsome, quietly
dependable and faintly humorous.