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been in the same class as Rupert, though she did not mention that to Mrs. Green. She felt some embarrassment now because he was one of the boys—in fact, the main one—that she and her girlfriends had teased and tormented. “Picked on,” as they used to say. They had picked on Rupert, following him up the street calling out, “Hello, Rupert. Hello, Ru-pert,” putting him into a state of agony, watching his neck go red. “Rupert’s got scarlet fever,” they would say. “Rupert, you should be quarantined.” And they would pretend that one of them—Enid, Joan McAuliffe, Marian Denny—had a case on him. “She wants to speak to you, Rupert. Why don’t you ever ask her out? You could phone her up at least. She’s dying to talk to you.”
    They did not really expect him to respond to these pleading overtures. But what joy if he had. He would have been rejected in short order and the story broadcast all over the school. Why? Why did they treat him this way, long to humiliate him? Simply because they could.
    Impossible that he would have forgotten. But he treated Enid asif she were a new acquaintance, his wife’s nurse, come into his house from anywhere at all. And Enid took her cue from him.
    Things had been unusually well arranged here, to spare her extra work. Rupert slept at Mrs. Green’s house, and ate his meals there. The two little girls could have been there as well, but it would have meant putting them into another school—there was nearly a month to go before school was out for the summer.
    Rupert came into the house in the evenings and spoke to his children.
    “Are you being good girls?” he said.
    “Show Daddy what you made with your blocks,” said Enid. “Show Daddy your pictures in the coloring book.”
    The blocks, the crayons, the coloring books, were all provided by Enid. She had phoned her mother and asked her to see what things she could find in the old trunks. Her mother had done that, and brought along as well an old book of cutout dolls which she had collected from someone—Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose and their many outfits. Enid hadn’t been able to get the little girls to say thank you until she put all these things on a high shelf and announced that they would stay there till thank you was said. Lois and Sylvie were seven and six years old, and as wild as little barn cats.
    Rupert didn’t ask where the playthings came from. He told his daughters to be good girls and asked Enid if there was anything she needed from town. Once she told him that she had replaced the lightbulb in the cellarway and that he could get her some spare bulbs.
    “I could have done that,” he said.
    “I don’t have any trouble with lightbulbs,” said Enid. “Or fuses or knocking in nails. My mother and I have done without a man around the house for a long time now.” She meant to tease a little, to be friendly, but it didn’t work.
    Finally Rupert would ask about his wife, and Enid would say that her blood pressure was down slightly, or that she had eaten and kept down part of an omelette for supper, or that the ice packs seemed to ease her itchy skin and she was sleeping better. And Rupert would say that if she was sleeping he’d better not go in.
    Enid said, “Nonsense.” To see her husband would do a woman more good than to have a little doze. She took the children up to bed then, to give man and wife a time of privacy. But Rupert never stayed more than a few minutes. And when Enid came back downstairs and went into the front room—now the sickroom—to ready the patient for the night, Mrs. Quinn would be lying back against the pillows, looking agitated but not dissatisfied.
    “Doesn’t hang around here very long, does he?” Mrs. Quinn would say. “Makes me laugh. Ha-ha-ha, how-are-you? Ha-ha-ha, off-we-go. Why don’t we take her out and throw her on the manure pile? Why don’t we just dump her out like a dead cat? That’s what he’s thinking. Isn’t he?”
    “I doubt it,”