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Next day, over a thinly wooded hillside they shot scrawny birds, distant poor relations to the partridge. It was done in a vague imitation of the English manner, with a corps of inexperienced beaters whom Dick managed to miss by firing only directly overhead.
On their return Lanier was waiting in their suite.
“Father, you said tell you immediately if we were near the sick boy.”
Nicole whirled about, immediately on guard.
“—so, Mother,” Lanier continued, turning to her, “the boy takes a bath every evening and to-night he took his bath just before mine and I had to take mine in his water, and it was dirty.”
“What? Now what?”
“I saw them take Tony out of it, and then they called me into it and the water was dirty.”
“But—did you take it?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Heavens!” she exclaimed to Dick.
He demanded: “Why didn’t Lucienne draw your bath?”
“Lucienne can’t. It’s a funny heater—it reached out of itself and burned her arm last night and she’s afraid of it, so one of those two women—”
“You go in this bathroom and take a bath now.”
“Don’t say I told you,” said Lanier from the doorway.
Dick went in and sprinkled the tub with sulphur; closing the door he said to Nicole:
“Either we speak to Mary or we’d better get out.”
She agreed and he continued: “People think their children are constitutionally cleaner than other people’s, and their diseases are less contagious.”
Dick came in and helped himself from the decanter, chewing a biscuit savagely in the rhythm of the pouring water in the bathroom.
“Tell Lucienne that she’s got to learn about the heater—” he suggested. At that moment the Asiatic woman came in person to the door.
“El Contessa—”
Dick beckoned her inside and closed the door.
“Is the little sick boy better?” he inquired pleasantly.
“Better, yes, but he still has the eruptions frequently.”
“That’s too bad—I’m very sorry. But you see our children mustn’t be bathed in his water. That’s out of the question—I’m sure your mistress would be furious if she had known you had done a thing like that.”
“I?” She seemed thunderstruck. “Why, I merely saw your maid had difficulty with the heater—I told her about it and started the water.”
“But with a sick person you must empty the bathwater entirely out, and clean the tub.”
“I?”
Chokingly the woman drew a long breath, uttered a convulsed sob and rushed from the room.
“She mustn’t get up on western civilization at our expense,” he said grimly.
At dinner that night he decided that it must inevitably be a truncated visit: about his own country Hosain seemed to have observed only that there were many mountains and some goats and herders of goats. He was a reserved young man—to draw him out would have required the sincere effort that Dick now reserved for his family. Soon after dinner Hosain left Mary and the Divers to themselves, but the old unity was split—between them lay the restless social fields that Mary was about to conquer. Dick was relieved when, at nine-thirty, Mary received and read a note and got up.
“You’ll have to excuse me. My husband is leaving on a short trip— and I must be with him.”
Next morning, hard on the heels of the servant bringing coffee, Mary entered their room. She was dressed and they were not dressed, and she had the air of having been up for some time. Her face was toughened with quiet jerky fury.
“What is this story about Lanier having been bathed in a dirty bath?”
Dick began to protest, but she cut through:
“What is this story that you commanded my husband’s sister to clean Lanier’s tub?”
She remained on her feet staring at them, as they sat impotent as idols in their beds, weighted by their trays. Together they exclaimed: “His SISTER!”
“That you ordered one of his sisters to clean out a tub!”
“We didn’t—” their voices rang together saying the same thing, “— I spoke to the native servant—”
“You spoke to Hosain’s sister.”
Dick could only say: “I supposed they were two maids.”
“You were told they were Himadoun.”
“What?” Dick got out of bed and into a robe.
“I explained it to you at the piano night before last. Don’t tell me you were too merry to understand.”
“Was that what you said? I didn’t hear the beginning. I didn’t connect the—we didn’t make any connection, Mary. Well, all we can do is see her and apologize.”
“See her and apologize! I explained to you that when the oldest member of the family—when the oldest one marries, well, the two oldest sisters consecrate themselves to being Himadoun, to being his wife’s ladies-in-waiting.”
“Was that why Hosain left the house last night?”
Mary hesitated; then nodded.
“He had to—they all left. His honor makes it necessary.”
Now both the Divers were up and dressing; Mary went on:
“And what’s all that about the bathwater. As if a thing like that could happen in this house! We’ll ask Lanier about it.”
Dick sat on the bedside indicating in a private gesture to Nicole that she should take over. Meanwhile Mary went to the door and spoke to an attendant in Italian.
“Wait a minute,” Nicole said. “I won’t have that.”
“You accused us,” answered Mary, in a tone she had never used to Nicole before. “Now I have a right to see.”
“I won’t have the child brought in.” Nicole threw on her clothes as though they were chain mail.
“That’s all right,” said Dick. “Bring Lanier in. We’ll settle this bathtub matter—fact or myth.”
Lanier, half clothed mentally and physically, gazed at the angered faces of the adults.
“Listen, Lanier,” Mary demanded, “how did you come to think you were bathed in water that had been used before?”
“Speak up,” Dick added.
“It was just dirty, that was all.”
“Couldn’t you hear the new water running, from your room, next door?”
Lanier admitted the possibility but reiterated his point—the water was dirty. He was a little awed; he tried to see ahead:
