Part 7

"I mustn't bother you. I was going to stay for lunch with you, it was so hot in town, but I mustn't think of it when you're so—"

"Of course you'll stay," said Juliet with decision. "What you see before you is only the smoke of battle. It will soon clear away. Run off—and I'll be with you presently. You'll find the late magazines in the living-room."

Her tone was intended to deceive and it was sufficiently successful. Judith was anxious to stay. She was also interested in the situation. She had heard much from Wayne in praise of Juliet's successful housekeeping, and had seen enough of it herself to be curious about its inner workings. For the first time she had happened upon a scene which would seem to indicate that there were phases in this sort of domestic life less ideal than she was asked to believe. She went back into the coolness and quiet of the living-room with a full appreciation of the fact that no hot kitchens ever threatened her own peace of mind.

Juliet finished her strawberry preserve, saw that everything liable to burn was removed to safe quarters; then deliberately took off her apron and stole out of the kitchen door. She went swiftly down through the orchard to the willow-bordered path by the brook; then, out of sight of everything human, ran several rods down it with a sweep of skirts which put everything in the bird creation to flight. At a certain pleasant spot among the willows, sheltered from all possible observation, she paused and flung herself down upon the warm ground.

But not in any attitude of despair. Neither did she cry tears of vexation and weariness. She was a healthy girl, with the perfect physical being whose poise is not upset by so small a matter as a fatiguing morning. Because a cake had burned, an extra amount of work had had to be conquered and an unexpected guest had arrived, her nerves were not worn to the rending point. But, having been reared in the belief that a breath of outdoors is the great antidote for all physical or mental discomforts born of confinement indoors, she had acquired a habit of running away from her cares at any and all times of day in precisely this fashion—and many were the advantages she had reaped from this somewhat unusual course of procedure.

Mrs. Anthony Robeson lay upon one side, her arm outstretched, her cheek pillowed upon her arm. She was drawing long, deep breaths, and looking lazily off at a stretch of blue sky cleft in the exact centre by one great graceful elm tree. One would have thought she had forgotten every care in the world, not to mention the guest from the city waiting expectantly for her hostess to appear. After ten minutes of this sort of indolence the figure in the blue and white print dress sat up, clasped both arms about her knees and remained regarding with half closed eyes the softly fluttering leaves of the willows along the edge of the brook. The hot flush died out of her cheeks; the lips whose expression a few minutes since had indicated self-control under a combination of trying circumstances, relaxed into their natural sweetness with a tendency toward mirth; and her whole aspect became that merely of the young athlete resting from one encounter and preparing herself for another.

At length she rose, shook out her skirts, and said aloud: "Now, Judith Dearborn Carey, I'm ready to upset your expectations. Since you looked in at me this morning you've been thinking I wished I hadn't—haven't you? Well, you may just understand that I don't wish anything of the sort." And in five minutes more she had walked in upon her guest by way of the front door, her pretty face serene, her hands full of pink June roses which she threw in a fragrant mass of beauty into her friend's lap.

"Put those into bowls for me, will you?" she requested. "Arrange them to suit yourself. Aren't they lovely? I suppose you're getting hungry. In half an hour you shall be served with a very modest but, I trust, not insufficient lunch. Would you like hot chocolate or iced tea?"

"Iced tea, by all means," chose Judith, who, being used to the privileges of selection from a variety of offered foods and beverages, was apt to want what was not set before her, when at a private table. Juliet understood this propensity of her friend and slyly took advantage of it. As it happened, she knew that at the moment she was quite out of chocolate, but she had counted advisedly upon Judith's choice on a hot June day, and she smiled to herself as she chopped ice and sliced lemon.

At the end of the half hour, Judith, who found the coolness of the living-room too delightful to allow her to keep watch of her friend in the hot kitchen, much as she was tempted to do so, was summoned to an equally cool dining-room. Upon the bare table, daintily set out upon some of the embroidered white doilies of Juliet's wedding linen, was a simple lunch of a character which appealed to the guest's critical appetite in a way which made her draw a long breath of satisfaction.

"You certainly do have a trick of serving things to make them taste better than other people's," she acknowledged, glancing from the little platter of broiled chicken with its bit of parsley to the crisp fruit salad made up of she knew not what, but presenting an appetising appearance—then regarding fondly a dish of spinach, pleasingly flanked by thin slices of boiled egg.

"It's really too hot to eat anything very solid," agreed Juliet with guile. "Rachel and I have a way of planning our lunches a day or two ahead, so that the leftovers we use up are not yesterday's but the day before's, and we remember with surprise how good the original dish was far back in the past. I wish Anthony could have his midday meal at home—though perhaps if he did the dinners wouldn't strike him so happily. Don't you think it's great fun to see a big, hearty man sit down at a table and look at it with an expression of adoration? Women may deride the fact as they will, but a healthy body does demand good things to eat, and shouldn't be blamed for liking them."

"Wayne hasn't much appetite," said Judith, eating away with relish. "He dislikes the people at our table—sometimes I think that's why he bolts his food and gets off in such a hurry. By the way, Juliet, are you and Tony coming in to the Reardons' to-night? Of course you are."

"I suppose we must," admitted Juliet with reluctance. "We have refused a good many things since we've been here, but I did promise Mrs. Reardon we would try to come to-night."

The little repast over, Judith offered, with well simulated warmth, to help her friend with the after work. But Juliet would have none of her. She sent her guest out into a hammock under the trees, and despatched the business of putting the little kitchen to rights with the celerity of one who means to have done with it.

In the middle of the June afternoon Judith awoke from a nap in the hammock to find her hostess standing laughing beside her, fresh in a thin gown of flowered dimity.

"Well," yawned Judith, heavily, "I must have gone off to sleep. I was tired—I am tireder. This is a fatiguing sort of weather—don't you think so? But you don't look it. And after all that work I found you in! Why aren't you used up? It kills me to do things in the heat."

Juliet dropped a big blue denim pillow on the ground and sat down upon it in a flutter of dimity. She lifted a smiling face and said with spirit:

"Last summer I could walk miles over a golf course twice a day and not mind it in the least. The year before I was most of the time on the river, rowing till I was as strong as a girl could be. I've had gymnasium work and fencing lessons and have been brought up to keep myself in perfect trim by my baths and exercise. What frail thing am I that a little housework should use me up?"

"Yes—I know—you always did go in for that sort of thing," reflected Judith, eyeing her companion's fresh colour and bright eyes. "I suppose I ought, but I never cared for it—I don't mean the baths and all that—of course any self-respecting woman adores warm baths. I don't like the cold plunges and showers you always add on."

"Then don't expect the results."

"It isn't everybody who has your energetic temperament. I hate golf, despise tennis, never rowed a stroke in my life, and could no more keep house as you are doing than I could fly."

"Let me see," said Juliet demurely, pretending to consider. "What is it that you do like to do?"

"You know well enough. And little enough of it I can get now with a husband who never cares to stir." There was a suspicion of bitterness in Judith's voice. But Juliet, ignoring it, went blithely on:

"I've a strong conviction that one can't be happy without being busy. Now that I can't keep up my athletic sports I should become a pale hypochondriac without these housewifely affairs to employ me. I don't like to embroider. I can't paint china. I'm not a musician. I somehow don't care to begin to devote myself to clubs in town. I love my books and the great outdoors—and plenty of action."

"You're a strange girl," was Judith's verdict, getting languidly out of the hammock, an hour later, after an animated discussion with her friend on various matters touching on the lives of both. "Either you're a remarkable actress or you're as contented as you seem to be. I wish I had your enthusiasm. Everything bores me—Look at this frock, after lying in a hammock! Isn't white linen the prettiest thing when you put it on and the most used up when you take it off, of any fabric known to the shops?"

"It is, indeed. But if anybody can afford to wear it it's you, who never sit recklessly about on banks and fences, but keep cool and correct and stately and—"

"—discontented. I admit I've talked like a fractious child all day. But I've had a good time and want to come oftener than I have. May I?"

"Of course you may. Must you go? I'll keep you to dinner and send for Wayne."

"You're an angel, but I've an engagement for five o'clock, and there's the Reardons' this evening. You won't forget that? You and Anthony will be sure to come?"

"I'll not promise absolutely, but I'll see. Mrs. Reardon was so kind as to leave it open. It's an informal affair, I believe?"

"Informal, but very gorgeous, just the same. She wouldn't give anybody but you such an elastic invitation as that, and you should appreciate her eagerness to get you," declared Judith, who cared very much from whom her invitations came and could never understand her friend's careless attitude toward the most impressive of them.

Juliet watched her guest go down the street, and waved an affectionate hand at her as Judith looked back from her seat in the trolley car. "Poor old Judy," she said to herself. "How glad you are you're not I!—And how very, very glad I am I'm not you!"

An observation, it must be admitted, essentially feminine. No man is ever heard to felicitate himself upon the fact that he is not some other man.

XV.—ANTHONY PLAYS MAID

After dinner that night, Juliet, having once more put things in order and slipped off the big pinafore which had kept her spotless, joined her husband in the garden up and down which he was comfortably pacing, hands in pockets, pipe in mouth.

"Jolly spot, isn't it? Come and perambulate," he suggested.

"Just for a minute. Tony, are we going to the Reardons?"

He stood still and considered. "I don't know. Are we? Did you accept?"

"On condition that you felt like it. I represented you as coming home decidedly fagged these hot nights and not always caring to stir."

"Wise schemer! I don't mind the aspersion on my physical being. She urged, I suppose?"

"She did. I don't know why."

"I do." Anthony smiled down at his wife. "Everybody is a bit curious about us these days. Your position, you see, is considered very extraordinary."

"Nonsense, Tony. Shall we go?"

"Possibly we'd better, though it racks my soul to think of dressing. The less I wear my festive garments the less I want to. For that very reason, suppose we discipline ourselves and go. Do you mind?"

"Not at all. We'll have to dress at once, for it's nearly eight now, and by the time we have caught a train and got to Hollyhurst—"

"To be sure. Here goes, then."

Half an hour later Anthony, wrestling with a refractory cuff button, looked up to see his wife at his elbow. She was very nearly a vision of elegance and beauty; the lacking essential was explained to him by a voice very much out of breath and a trifle petulant:

"If you care anything for me, Tony, stop everything and hook me up. I'm all mixed up, and I can't reach, and I'm sure I've torn that little lace frill at the back."

"All right. Where do I begin?"

"Under my left arm, I think—I can't possibly see."

"Neither can I." He was poking about under the lifted arm, among folds of filmy stuff. "Here we are—no, we aren't. Does this top hook go in this little pocket on the other side?"

"I suppose so—can't you tell whether it does by the look?"

"It seems a bit blind to me," murmured Anthony, struggling.

"It's meant to be blind—it mustn't show when it's fastened."

"It certainly doesn't now. Hold on—don't wriggle. I've got it now. I've found the combination. Three turns to the right, five to the left, clear around once, then—Hullo! I've come out wrong. The thing doesn't track at the bottom."

"You've missed a hook."

"Oh, no. I hung onto 'em all the way down."

"Then you missed an eye. You'll have to unhook it all and begin again."

Anthony obeyed. "I'm glad I don't have to get into my clothes around the corner this way," he commented. "Here you are. We stuck to the schedule this time."

"Wait, dear. You haven't fastened the shoulder. There are ever so many little hooks along there and around the arm hole."

"I should say there were. What's the good of so many?—Where do they begin? Look out—wait a minute—Juliet, if you don't stop twisting around so I never can do it. I can do great, heroic acts, it's the little trials that floor me—There—no!—that doesn't look right."

Juliet ran to the mirror. "It isn't right," she cried. "Look—that corner shouldn't lap over like that. Oh, if I could only reach myself!"

"You can't—I've often tried it. The human anatomy—Stand still, Julie—you're getting nervous."

"If there's one thing that's trying—" murmured Juliet.

"Why do you let your dressmakers build your frocks this way? Why not get into 'em all in front, where you can see what you're doing?—Now I've got it. Isn't that right?"

"Yes. Wait, Tony—here's the girdle. It fastens behind."

Anthony surveyed the incomprehensible affair of silk and velvet ribbon she put into his hands. "Looks like a head-stall to me," he said. Juliet laughed and fitted it about her own waist. Anthony attempted to make it join at the back of the points she held out to him.

"It won't come together," he said.

"Oh, yes, it will. Draw it tight."

"I am drawing it tight. It's smaller than you are. You can't wear it."

Juliet laughed again. Anthony tugged.

"Wait till I hold my breath," she said.

"Great guns!" he ejaculated, and by the exertion of much force fastened the girdle. Then he stood off a step or two and looked at his wife curiously. Flushed and laughing she returned his gaze.

"Can you breathe?" he asked solicitously.

"Of course I can."

"What with?"

"It is a little tight, of course," she admitted. "This is one of my trousseau dresses. I've grown a little stouter, I suppose. Never mind, I can stand it for to-night. Thank you very much. You must hurry now, Tony."

"I haven't had my pay for playing maid," he said, and came close. He surveyed his wife's fair neck and shoulders, turned her around and deliberately kissed the soft hollow where the firm white flesh of her neck met the waving brown hair drawn lightly upwards.

"That's the spot that tantalized me for about six years," he observed.

Hunting hurriedly through various drawers and boxes in the blue-and-white room, in search of gloves and fan, Juliet heard her husband come in his turn to her open door.

"Will you have the goodness to look at me?" he requested, in a melancholy voice. Juliet turned, gave him one glance, and broke into a merry peal.

"Oh, Tony!—What's the matter? Have you been growing stouter, too?"

"It must be," he said solemnly.

His clawhammer coat was so tight across the shoulders that the strain was evident. He was holding his arms in the exaggerated position of the small boy who wears a last year's suit. Juliet revolved around her husband's well built figure with interest.

"It does look tight," she said. "But have you grown heavier all at once? It can't be long since you wore that coat before."

"Don't believe I have for months. It's been altogether frock-coats and informals. I haven't been to an evening affair with ladies for a good while."

"It doesn't look as it feels, I'm sure. It's getting very late—we ought to be off," and Juliet gathered up her belongings and gave him a long loose coat to hold for her which covered her finery completely.

"Now's the hour when I regret that I haven't a carriage for you," said Anthony, as they descended the stairs. He got into his outer coat reluctantly. "I shall split something around my back before the evening is over," he prophesied resignedly.

"Never mind. Remember how tight my girdle is. It grows tighter every minute."

They got out upon the porch and Anthony locked the door. "If I should show that door-key to any man I know except Carey he would howl," he remarked, holding up the queer old brass affair before he slipped it into his pocket. He looked down at Juliet in the gathering June twilight. "Don't you wish we didn't have to go?"

"Yes, I do," she agreed frankly.

"Let's not!"

"My dear boy! At this hour?"

"We could telephone."

"Shouldn't you feel rather ashamed to, so late?"

"Not a bit. But of course we'll go if you say so."

She laughed, and he joined her boyishly. She hesitated.

"If I see you looking faint in that girdle shall I throw a glass of cold water over you?"

"Please do. If I hear a sound as of rending cloth shall I divert the attention of the company?"

"By all means."

They were laughing like two children. Anthony sat down in one of the porch chairs. He drew a long sigh. "I never hated to leave my dear home so since I came into it," he said gloomily.

Juliet pulled off her coat. "If you'll do the telephoning I'll stay," she said.

He jumped to his feet. "Let me loosen that girdle for you. I haven't been breathing below the fifth rib myself since you put it on, just in sympathy," he declared.

XVI.—A HOUSE-PARTY—OUTDOORS

"The trouble is," said Anthony Robeson, shifting his position on the step below Juliet so that he could rest his head against her knee, "the trouble is we're getting too popular."

Juliet laughed and ran her fingers through his thick locks, gently tweaking them. The two were alone together in the warm darkness of a July evening, upon their own little porch.

"It's the first evening we've had to ourselves since the big snowdrift under the front windows melted. That was about the date Roger Barnes met Louis Lockwood here the first time. Ye gods—but they've kept each other's footprints warm since then, haven't they? And now Cathcart is giving indications of having contracted the fatal malady. Can't Rachel Redding be incarcerated somewhere until the next moon is past? I notice they all have worse symptoms each third quarter. That girl looks innocent, but—by heaven, Julie, I think she has it down fine."

"No, you don't," said Juliet persuasively. "I should catch her at it if she were deliberately trying to keep two such men as Roger and Louis pitted against each other. They're doing it all themselves. I've known her to run away when she saw one of them coming—so that she couldn't be found. But, Tony dear, I've a plan."