to cause a certain anxiety ... and could Geraldine come to
the rescue?

'Shall you go?' Henry asked.

'Oh yes,' she said. 'I've arranged with Mr. Snyder, and wired Teddy that
I'll arrive early to-morrow.'

She spoke in an extremely matter-of-fact tone, as though there were no
such things as love and ecstasy in the world, as though to indicate that
in her opinion life was no joke, after all.

'And what about me?' said Henry. He thought: 'My shrewd, capable girl
has to sacrifice herself--and me--in order to look after incompetent
persons who can't look after themselves!'

'You'll be all right,' said she, still in the same tone.

'Can't I run down and see you?' he suggested.

She laughed briefly, as at a pleasantry, and so Henry laughed too.

'With four sick people on my hands!' she exclaimed.

'How long shall you be away?' he inquired.

'My dear--can I tell?'

'You'd better come back to Paris with me for a week or so, my son,' said
Tom. 'I shall leave the day after to-morrow.'

And now Henry laughed, as at a pleasantry. But, to his surprise,
Geraldine said:

'Yes, do. What a good idea! I should like you to enjoy yourself, and
Paris is so jolly. You've been, haven't you, dearest?'

'No,' Henry replied. 'I've never been abroad at all.'

'_Never?_ Oh, that settles it. You must go.'

Henry had neither the slightest desire nor the slightest intention to go
to Paris. The idea of him being in Paris, of all places, while Geraldine
was nursing the sick night and day, was not a pleasant one.

'You really ought to go, you know,' Tom resumed. 'You, a novelist ...
can't see too much! The monuments of Paris, the genius of the French
nation! And there's notepaper and envelopes and stamps, just the same as
in London. Letters posted in Paris before six o'clock will arrive in
Leicester on the following afternoon. Am I not right, Miss Foster?'

Geraldine smiled.

'No,' said Henry. 'I'm not going to Paris--not me!'

'But I wish it,' Geraldine remarked calmly.

And he saw, amazed, that she did wish it. Pursuing his researches into
the nature of women, he perceived vaguely that she would find pleasure
in martyrizing herself in Leicester while he was gadding about Paris;
and pleasure also in the thought of his uncomfortable thought of her
martyrizing herself in Leicester while he was gadding about Paris.

But he said to himself that he did not mean to yield to womanish
whims--he, a man.

'And my work?' he questione