"Mrs. Greyson is at home again," he said.

"Mrs. Greyson," she echoed, her dark eyes lighting up with genuine
pleasure. "Oh, that is indeed good. Where is she? Have you seen her?"

There shot through Herman's mind the reflection that since his wife
could not know that he married her out of love not for herself but for
Helen Greyson, it was absurd to have fancied that Ninitta would be
jealously displeased at Helen's return; and the inevitable twinge of
conscience at his wife's trusting ignorance followed.

"I haven't seen her," he answered; "she only arrived yesterday. Mrs.
Fenton told me when I met her at the Paint and Clay Exhibition last
night."

Ninitta folded her hands on the edge of the table, with a gesture of
childish pleasure.

"I wonder what she will say to Nino," she said musingly, her voice
taking a new softness.

A sudden spasm contracted the sculptor's throat. His whole being was
shaken by the return of the woman to whom all the passionate devotion
of his manhood was given, and he never heard that soft, maternal note
with which his wife spoke of his boy without emotion.

"She may say that the young rascal ought to be out of his bed in time
for breakfast," he retorted with affected brusqueness. "He has all the
Italian laziness in him."