Martha in Paris by Margery Sharp Page B

Dolores’ bony hip almost to voluptuousness; but he didn’t disturb her. He lay and thought about Martha.
    Addressing himself more or less to the ceiling—
    â€œWhy’s she want to come home?” mused Harry.
    Unexpectedly, Dolores answered. She hadn’t been asleep either.
    â€œYou never read her letter, darling. She does miss me after all!”
    â€œSo she should,” said Harry—but more as one stating a desideratum than a fact.
    â€œAnd I’m so glad,” murmured Dolores, out of her own private but happier thoughts, “because although I always tried to do my best for her—”
    â€œYou were an angel,” said Harry warmly.
    â€œâ€”she never showed much affection. Sometimes it hurt,” admitted Dolores, “but if she’s willing to give up a year in Paris, just because she misses me, I know every sacrifice was worth while.”
    With connubial familiarity she turned to insert her feet between the warmth of Harry’s calves. It was nice. Even under three blankets and a quilt Dolores’ feet had a trick of staying cold, but it was still nice. Harry lay several moments thinking what a lucky chap he was, before the question of Martha’s homecoming bothered him again.
    He didn’t know why, but he smelt something—fishy. His wife’s happy explanation hadn’t convinced him. Undoubtedly Martha ought to be missing so kind (and self-sacrificing) an aunt; but all Harry’s experience of her made it seem unlikely. That she had her own good reasons for abandoning a second year in Paris he didn’t doubt for a moment; but he was dashed if he believed they were sentimental ones …
    Thus he lay staring up at the ceiling with his original question still unanswered.—Though he had no glimmering of the truth, Harry Gibson face to face with Martha might just possibly have got it out of her, simply by rejecting her paper-explanation outright and blundering about until he blundered upon the right track. But Martha was in Paris and Harry Gibson at Richmond, and they weren’t to meet for the next three months; so Martha had nothing to fear from her Uncle Harry.
    She was in fact due for a severer, an expert cross-examination. Upon Mr. Joyce the retailed gladsome news acted more positively. Mr. Joyce nipped over to Paris within the next twenty-four hours.

Chapter Fourteen
    His appearance in the rue de Vaugirard, where he arrived unheralded just in time to take Martha out to dinner, considerably fluttered both Madame Dubois and Angèle and slightly dismayed even Martha. Unlike her nervous hostesses—Madame apprehensive of being charged with inefficacy as a duenna, Angèle more insanely fearful of a rebuke for having attempted to send him a match-box cover—Martha guessed accurately why Mr. Joyce had come; and recognizing in him the only person with a right to question her, while washing her hands attempted to think of a few acceptable answers.—During this interval, indeed, Mr. Joyce by his calm demeanour and pleasant conversation quite succeeded, if unconsciously, in allaying every fear he had as unconsciously aroused, in the bosoms of Madame and Angèle; but Martha stumped out after him still uneasy …
    They gained the restaurant of his choice in complete silence. Martha had never learned the art of making small-talk, and Mr. Joyce was too rich to need to. Not until they were settled at table—(the attentions of head- and wine-waiter briefly acknowledged; the menu swiftly and expertly chosen)—did Martha’s patron open fire.
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    â€œNow please tell me what is all this,” ordered Mr. Joyce, “about wishing to leave the studio.—For I may say at once that your tale of missing a kind Auntie the old man does not for a moment believe.”
    Martha pushed about the six snail-shells on her plate. The hand-washing interval hadn’t been long enough; and she was never