In the room above, Helen helped Madelene off with her things and listened to her chatter about the journey. She could detect a sullen dissatisfaction with Frederick running like a dark thread through the current of her talk. It was clear to Helen that Madelene had lost her regard for her husband. Apparently, she cared so little that she didn't feel it necessary to hide or explain her feelings.
"And, now I want to see little Elsie," gushed Madelene. "I've been crazy to see her ever since she was born."
"She's such a darling," smiled Helen, "and is the very joy of her father's heart.... Come on in the nursery."
For a few seconds Madelene leaned over the sleeping child, a rosy child with thick blonde curls. A keen sense of the emptiness of her own arms stirred in her an envy of the complacent young matron standing at the foot of the little white bed. Perhaps Fred would've been different if they'd had a little one.
"I'd love to have a baby," she breathed discontentedly. "But--"
During the significant pause, Helen linked her arm through the speaker's.
"Let's go down to dinner," she suggested. "You must be famished after your long ride."
At the table, the conversation touched many matters relating to the happenings in the lives of the long separated families. Madelene plied her knife and fork industriously, and jumped from topic to topic, expressing a lively interest in all the events in Ithaca.
"And your brother, dear?" she asked her hostess. "Is he still at the lake place?"
Helen threw a quick glance at her husband, whose lips sank at the corners, his face coloring to a deep red.
When his sister asked the question, the glass from which the elder had been drinking struck the table sharply, as though he wished to emphasize his displeasure.
"Yes, he lives there," he broke in. "In your father's old place, Fred. His lease is not up for almost a year."
"Helen wrote me he had the Skinner girl and her baby with him," said Mrs. Graves. "Wasn't that a funny thing for him to do, Ebbie?"
Waldstricker pushed back angrily.
"Funny! Funny!" he ejaculated. "It isn't decent, and I've told him so, too."
Frederick's face flushed, and he toyed nervously with the silver at the side of his plate.
"But, Ebenezer, you don't mean she's living with him, do you?" he faltered, leaning forward.
"They live there together, Young and the girl and her--" Ebenezer's anger almost made him forget the conventional respect he owed his wife and sister, "--her son," he concluded lamely. "That's all I know, and it's enough. He's had the best houses in Ithaca closed to him on her account."