* * * * *
When I went upstairs that evening, I found my wife putting her hair to
bed--I don't know how I can better describe an operation familiar to
every married man. I waited until the last tress was coiled up, and
then I spoke:
"I've talked with Brede," I said, "and I didn't have to catechize him.
He seemed to feel that some sort of explanation was looked for, and he
was very outspoken. You were right about the children--that is, I must
have misunderstood him. There are only two. But the Matterhorn episode
was simple enough. He didn't realize how dangerous it was until he had
got so far into it that he couldn't back out; and he didn't tell her,
because he'd left her here, you see, and under the circumstances----"
"Left her here!" cried my wife. "I've been sitting with her the whole
afternoon, sewing, and she told me that he left her at Geneva, and
came back and took her to Basle, and the baby was born there--now I'm
sure, dear, because I asked her."
"Perhaps I was mistaken when I thought he said she was on this side of
the water," I suggested, with bitter, biting irony.
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