im about that was in a
way equivalent to liking?

These languid but delightful investigations--not unlike the pastimes one
spins out when one has a long, long lovely summer day with hours on
hours for luxurious happy idling--these investigations were abruptly
suspended by a suddenly compelled trip to Europe. He arranged for
Dorothy to send him a cable every day--"about yourself and the
baby"--and he sent an occasional cabled bulletin about himself in reply.
But neither wrote to the other; their relationship was not of the
letter-exchanging kind--and had no need of pretense at what it was not.

In the third month of his absence, his sister Ursula came over for
dresses, millinery and truly aristocratic society. She had little time
for him, or he for her, but they happened to lunch alone about a week
after his arrival.

"You're looking cross and unhappy," said she. "What's the matter?
Business?"

"No--everything's going well."

"Same thing that's troubling Dorothy, then?"

"Is Dorothy ill?" inquired he, suddenly as alert as he had been absent.
"She hasn't let me know anything about it."

"Ill? Of course not," reassured Ursula. "She's never ill. But--I've not
anywhere or ever seen two people as crazy about each other as you and
she."

"Really?" Norman had relapsed into interest in what he was eating.

"You live all alone down there in the country. You treat anyone who
comes to see you as intruder. And as soon as darling husband goes away,
darling wife wanders about like a damned soul. Honestly, it gave me the
blues to look at her eyes. And I used to think she cared more about the
baby than about you."

"She's probably worried about something else," said Norman. "More salad?
No? There's no dessert--at least I've ordered none. But if you'd like
some strawberries----"

"I thought of that," replied Ursula, not to be deflected. "I mean of her
being upset about something beside you. I'm slow to suspect anyone of
really caring about any _one_ else. But, although she didn't confess, I
soon saw that it was your absence. And she wasn't putting on for my
benefit, either. My maid hears the same thing from all the servants."

"This is pleasant," said Norman in his mocking good-humored way.

"And you're in the same state," she charged with laughing but
sympathetic eyes. "Why, Fred, you're as madly in love with her as ever."

"I wonder," said he reflectively.

"Why didn't you bring her with you?"

He stared at his sis