At the risk of causing the gentle reader to despise us, I feel in duty bound to set forth the joys and sorrows of our first housekeeping about as they occurred. By that I mean that I intend to take the keen edge from our griefs for kindness' sake and to illuminate our joys a little beyond the stern realities as we found them, in order to permit the reader to understand the colour of the Paradise that the Angel and I found in each other. If, therefore, I do not burst into tears at the moment when any well-regulated woman would, lay it, O gentle reader, at the door of the Angel, whose deep-seeing understanding not only could comprehend such a grief as that of parting with my dog, but which also was capable of sympathizing with suitable violence over a gown which did not fit or the polite malice of an afternoon visitor.
If I add that when I went into a fury over nothing at all the Angel never attempted to stop me or to pooh-pooh the cause, but permitted me to mangle the whole subject until it lay a disorganized, dismembered, wholly unrecognizable mass at my triumphant feet, I feel reasonably sure that I shall have proved to every woman his right to his title.
The knowing ones will naturally scorn the method of reasoning by which we arrived at conclusions, but I have found that nothing is more diverting or delightful than to go blundering into absurd predicaments, mentally hand in hand, for the Angel never says "I told you so." That sting being removed and all three in this happy family, Mary, the Angel, and I, all being rather handsomely endowed with a sense of humour, it is a constant source of enjoyment to look back and consider the virulence and contagion of our ignorance and to count the bruises by which we became wise.
One evening at ten o'clock we came in from making a call and found the elevator-boy in his shirt-sleeves washing the hall floor. I asked him if it wasn't a little early to be doing such a thing, as people were still going and coming, and he said he was acting under Mr. Jepson's orders. Jepson was the agent.
We said we would remonstrate, and we wrote a letter to Jepson asking him to have the hall cleaned after twelve o'clock at night and before six o'clock in the morning. He wrote back that, after consulting the convenience of all the people in the house, he had decided on eight in the morning and ten at night, as everybody was at breakfast at the first hour and that ten was the freest hour for the halls at night. He added that the gentleman on the first floor went fishing at six every morning, and had complained of having the halls washed at that hour, as he was inconvenienced thereby.
A few days later we met Jepson on the street, and Aubrey stopped him and said:
"There are several matters about the house I wish you would look into,Mr. Jepson."
"Now look here, Mr. Jardine, if you expect me to run that whole apartment-house to suit you, you are going to be mistaken."
"For whose comfort and convenience is it run?" I broke in before Aubrey could stop me.
"For mine, madam! I arrange everything outside of your four walls."
"Then we have no rights as to entrance, elevator, and our upper hall?" asked Aubrey.
"None, sir!"
I pulled the Angel away.
"Now, Aubrey," I said, "Ihave had an apartment in Paris, and I know what the power of the concierge is. But if you think for one minute that I am going to submit to such impertinence here in America, you never were more mistaken in your life."
"What do you intend to do?" asked my husband, with the very natural and perfectly excusable interest a man takes when he sees his wife donning her war-paint.
"The trouble with me is that I am too agreeable," I went on, firmly. The Angel never flinched even at that statement. "I am too polite. We ask for our rights as if we were requesting favours."
"Is it our right to say when the halls shall be cleaned?" asked Aubrey.
"Well, I leave it to you as a business man. There is a difference of eight hundred dollars a year in the rent between the first floor and ours. If we pay the highest rent shouldn't our wishes be considered first?"
"Eight hundred dollars' worth first!" agreed Aubrey.
"Well, now I'll tell you what I think we would better do, and see if you don't agree with me. To tell the truth, I am getting a little sick of the tyranny of agents and janitors, and I propose to see if by making a firm stand we cannot establish a precedent for the rights of tenants."
"Don't go to law," said Aubrey, "for every law in New York State seems to favour agents and janitors. I've conducted too many cases not to know."
"We won't go to law. We will use common sense. It vexes me to hear everybody telling what abuses they stand in New York apartments, and not one of them has the courage to make a fight for liberty. An Englishman wouldn't stand it for one minute, but we Americans are cowards about 'scenes' and 'fusses' and such things, and year by year our rights are passing from our hands into the hands of foreigners and the lower classes, who already rule us because they don't mind a fight."
"True," said Aubrey.
Much flattered by his approval, I proceeded more calmly. It always puts me in a heavenly temper not to be opposed.
"Now we will give this Jepson person one more chance. If he abuses his authority or tramples on even the fringe of our rights, we will revolt."
"Good!" cried Aubrey, perfectly willing to become enthusiastic over an encounter not in the immediate future. But his peaceful disposition once roused, and my inflammable nature crawls into the darkest corner under the bed to escape the sight of the consequences.
It came to be the first week in October without anything more irritating happening than that all our protests had been disregarded, and we picked our way through sloppy halls and dismissed our guests with forced jests about bathing suits being furnished by the agent for them to reach the street door in safety, and all such things, keeping up a proud front, but secretly mortified almost to death, for anybody would know from our location that we were paying a high rent, and then to think—
However—
On this early October morning we found frost on the windows, and, although we had no thermometer, we knew that we were cold. We hurried out into the dining-room and lighted the gas-logs. They were new, and inside of five minutes we had every window in the house open and handkerchiefs to our noses. We said we would stand it and burn the new off, but we have lived here two years and the new is still on. So then we said we must have heat. This was before Janitor Harris left, so Aubrey, after ringing in vain for half an hour, went down and told him to make a fire in the furnaces. Harris said we were to have no heat until the fifteenth of November. It was a rule of all apartment-houses. Aubrey said, "Nonsense!" But when he came up-stairs Mary confirmed the janitor. She said it was a rule in New York.
We said nothing, but we felt that this was the time for our declaration of independence.
First we bought thermometers for every room.
Then Aubrey looked up the law.
In all the bedrooms the mercury stayed at forty-nine until noon, then it got to fifty-one. At seven that night it dropped to forty-five, and in the morning all the windows were frosted again.
Aubrey's law partner was extremely interested in all our plans, for he also lived in an apartment and wanted heat, but knew better than to ask for it. Our lease was so worded that we were to have "heat when necessary." Our rights hung upon when the agent, who was five miles away, or the owner, who was in Florida, should agree upon how cold we were to be allowed to grow before thawing us out. Then, carefully planning the campaign, Aubrey wrote letters and had interviews with the agent, in which he committed himself in the presence of witnesses and on paper until, on the afternoon of the third day of our cold storage, Aubrey wrote to the agent saying that if we did not have heat within twenty-four hours, we should go to a hotel and stay until they chose to give it to us, and take it out of the rent. This letter evidently tickled one of the clerks in the agent's office to such an extent that he called Aubrey up by telephone and said he had done the only thing possible under the circumstances to bring the company to book. This approval pleased Aubrey, and he asked the man's name. It was Brooks.
We all felt that Brooks was a gentleman.
"They willneverlet us dothat, Aubrey," I said.
"They will think we are bluffing!" said the Angel, with quiet conviction.
"Bluffing!" I cried. "Do they think we won't go if they don't give us heat?"
"They little knowyou, do they?" said Aubrey, patting the sleeve of my sealskin, for I wore it all day now. I put it on when I got up.
We waited the twenty-four hours, and then as no notice had been taken of our letter we calmly packed a handbag, bade Mary good-bye,—she had the gas range to keep warm by,—and much to her delight we went down to the Waldorf. But not to our old luxurious quarters. We took a room and a bath at five dollars a day. We were doing this from stern principle, and we wanted a reasonable case.
I have never flattered myself privately that I am a particularly agreeable woman, but I can truthfully say that we were extremely popular at the Waldorf, for in some manner it had leaked out that we were making a test case on the "heat before the 15th," and everybody we knew who lived in apartments called to see if we were really there, and some who didn't know us sent word to us or walked by to look at us, as if we were performing animals. The name of Jardine was paged through the corridors and billiard-room and cafe until we had a personal acquaintance with every menial in the hotel. It cost us a good deal to get away, I remember.
All these first-mentioned nice persons encouraged us, and slapped Aubrey on the back and called him "old chap," much to his annoyance (for the Angel hates familiarity from chance acquaintances), and said we were doing the right thing and God-blessed-us and wanted us to promise to let them know how we came out.
We said nothing, but we could see that not one among them all but expected either a lawsuit or that we would be obliged to back down and pay for this foolhardy defiance of the despot out of our own pockets.
Each day we went out to the apartment and examined the thermometers and took signed statements as to the degree they registered. We had notified the agent that we would not return until it was sixty-eight Fahrenheit in the bedrooms.
On the afternoon of the third day the weather had moderated to such an extent that it was sixty-eight, so I stayed while Aubrey went down to the Waldorf for the bill and our bag. On his return he proudly exhibited a receipted bill for $27.
As no reply had been received to our letter and no one had been sent to see us, we felt a truly justifiable pride in the little surprise we had for Jepson when on the first of November the Angel sent a cheque for November rent, less $27, together with the now famous receipted bill.
If we felt that we had been ignored by our agent hitherto, we had no cause for complaint after the receipt of that bill and cheque. In fact, as I told Aubrey, Jepson did not have time to use a paper-knife on the envelope,—he must have torn it open with feverish fingers,—for the telephone-bell jingled madly before breakfast when the office "wanted to know the meaning of this," and when the Angel rang off without any reply, poor old Jepson came up to the apartment out of breath.
We got plenty of attention afterthat!
Jepson was at first quite confident—even patronizing.
"Why, don't you know, Mr. Jardine, we can't allow any such absurd thing as this to go on—not for a minute."
"Ah," said Aubrey. "What do you propose to do about it?"
"I propose to leave this—this—er—bill and cheque with you and collect the full amount of the rent."
"I don't envy you the process," said my husband.
"Oh, well, I imagine there will be no trouble about it. We know our rights."
"Has it ever occurred to you that we might know ours?" said Aubrey.
"Yes, certainly. But you know, Mr. Jardine, we are agents for a large number of the best apartment-houses in New York, and we have not given heat to any one so far."
"I only live in this one," said Aubrey. "It does not interest me in the least what temperature other of your tenants prefer. I shall have this apartment warm whenIthink it is cold."
"Well, but—I understand how you feel, but—no one ever did such a thing as this before in the whole course of my thirty-five years' experience."
"I can quite believe it," said Aubrey, thinking of the people we knew who suffered without a protest.
"Then you can imagine my surprise this morning to receive this," saidJepson.
"I can quite imagine it," returned my husband, with an irony wasted onJepson, but delightful to me.
"Well," said our visitor, rising, "I hope you will think better of it and send me a cheque for the full amount. It will save unpleasantness."
"I anticipate unpleasantness from my past experience with you," said theAngel, "and that is every cent you will get from me for November rent."
"Then we shall sue you, Mr. Jardine. Doubtless you would be embarrassed to be sued for twenty-seven dollars."
"It wouldn't embarrass me to be sued for twenty-seven cents," said Aubrey, cheerfully, for he always expands in good nature when the other man shows signs of temper.
"Do you expect us to sue?" asked the astonished agent.
"Here is my defence," said Aubrey, pleasantly, drawing a bundle of law papers from his pocket. "My partner and I have been at work on this case for a fortnight."
Jepson sat down again suddenly and unwound his neck-scarf. The Angel does look gentle.
"I didn't think—" he began and stopped, but Aubrey helped him out.
"You didn't think several things, Mr. Jepson. You didn't think I meant it when I said I must have heat. You didn't think I meant it when I wrote you that I would go to a hotel if you didn't give it to me. You didn't think I would resent your paying no attention to our requests about cleaning the halls. You didn't think I intended to live in this apartment to suit my own comfort and convenience and not yours. You didn't think I could force you to live up to the terms of our lease, which says 'heat when necessary.' But I intend to give you an opportunity right now to change your mind about several things."
Jepson dropped his hat on the floor and fumbled for it.
"I'll take the matter up with the president of our company," he said.
"Do," said Aubrey, cordially.
The next morning while Aubrey was down-town the president of the real estate company called.
"Now, Mrs. Jardine," he said, "I just thought I would drop in while your husband was away to discuss this little difficulty in a friendly way and see if you and I couldn't come to some arrangement by which both parties will be satisfied."
"Yes?" I said.
"You see, Mrs. Jardine, you as a lady will realize that your husband took a very high-handed way,—in fact, I may say it was the most high-handed proceeding I have ever heard of in all my business career."
"Yes? I suppose it must have astonished you as much as it amazed us to discover that we were to be heated by date instead of by temperature."
"Er—er well! Of course, you didn't know, but you must understand that that rule obtains among all agents in New York."
"So we heard," I said, indifferently.
"You know that?"
"Oh, certainly."
"Did you know what method Mr. Jardine was about to pursue to force us to heat your apartment before any one else asked for heat?"
"I suggested it to him," I said, gently.
"You sug—Well, of course. Hum! I see."
"And as for none of the other tenants wanting heat, every family in the house asked for it. The lady on the third floor has a five-weeks-old baby, and, as you know, there are no gas-logs in any of the bedrooms."
"Well," said the president, rising, "I must look into this. I will take the matter up with the owners."
"Good morning," I said. "I will tell Mr. Jardine that you called."
"Yes, do," he said, hurriedly putting on his hat, and then taking it off again. "Good morning. Mr. Jardine will hear from me."
"I hope so," I said to myself as Mary closed the door. "We never have before."
The owners called next, singly and in couples. We were delighted to meet them, for we were convinced that we never would have had the pleasure of their acquaintance under any other circumstances.
After more interviews and letters than any $27 ever occasioned before, we finally received a letter stating that our claim had been allowed, and they enclosed a receipt in full for November's rent.
Nobody believed us when we told them, and we nearly wore the letter out exhibiting it. It is worn at the folding places now from much handling, like an autograph letter of Lincoln's or Washington's.
During the following year a new firm of agents took possession of us, who knew us not, so that the next October, when we wanted heat, the same patronizing manner greeted the Angel when he telephoned for permission to have the janitor light the furnaces.
"Oh, no. Oh, no, Mr.—er—Really, we couldn't consider such a request," came a voice.
"Look here," said Aubrey. "I am the man who went to the Waldorf last year when the agent refused us heat and took twenty-seven dollars out of the rent. You may have heard of me."
"What name, sir? Oh, Jardine! Yes, Mr. Jardine, you shall have heat within an hour."
The next morning the janitor—also a new one by the way—told the Angel that he got a telephone message from the agent to start a fire in the furnace if he had to tear off wooden doors and burn them!
"All of which goes to show," said Aubrey to me, "that somebody ought to write a book on 'The Value of the Kicker.'"
Second only to the skill required in managing a husband is the diplomacy necessary in the art of living with one's cook. Therefore let the unmarried pass this over, feeling that the time for them to read it is not yet, but let those who have a cross-grained, crotchety, obstinate, or bad-tempered cook take this to a quiet corner and hear my tale. While it may not be exactly your experience it cannot fail to touch a responsive chord, for whether you have already had a spoiled cook or not, rest assured that you will have one some day, and do not scorn to make her the subject of deep and earnest study and the object of diplomatic negotiations.
In our case Mary was old and obstinate, but her virtues were too many to dismiss her without valiant efforts made to reform her in one or two particulars. It is, alas! but too true, that perfection does not exist, especially in cooks. But as even her failings leaned to virtue's side we bore and bore with her, making light of our inconveniences, and pretending not to notice that we could never make her do anything that she had not wanted to do beforehand. It was a good deal of a strain on us sometimes, for we are self-respecting folk, with excellent opinions of ourselves.
But among her good points was an absolute reverence for food. She never wasted a mouthful, even saving the crusts she cut from the toast to grind for breading and doing all the thrifty things one would do oneself, but which no cook ever born is expected to do nowadays. She had lived some years in Paris, for one thing, and for another,—"Missis, I always believe that them that wastes—wants. I've seen it too many times to want to run the risk."
Mary is a character, but this theory of hers she carried to an extreme, as you shall hear.
Owing to our respect for Mary's white hairs, the dinner-hour was as changeable as a weathercock. We dined anywhere from seven to nine, and soothed each other's irritation by calling ostentatious attention to the delicacy and perfection of each dish as it came on the table. Why shouldn't each be perfect, forsooth, when no amount of coaxing or persuading, no amount of instructions beforehand or hints or orders could make that cook of ours lift a finger toward dinner until we both were in the house with hungry countenances and expectant demeanours? We even tried telephoning her from down-town that we were on the way and would be at home in an hour. When we came in at the end of that hour and said:
"Mary, is dinner ready?" the answer was always:
"No, dear child, but it will be in a minute."
At first we believed her and hurried to get ready, but as ten, twenty, thirty minutes passed and no signs of soup appeared, we used to take turns strolling carelessly into the kitchen as if to see what time it was, to investigate the progress of dinner. If we came in at seven we got it at eight. There was no way apparently of circumventing her. She would have her own way.
Once the Angel said:
"Mary, didn't we telephone you that we wanted dinner just as soon as we came in?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Well, wasn't it six o'clock when we telephoned?"
"Yes, sir, but I just thought maybe you would be delayed or the car would run off the track or you'd stop to talk to some friends, so I wouldn't begin to cook until I clapped my two eyes on you."
At first we used to laugh and say that it was her respect for food. Then it worked on our tempers and grew anything but funny. It got to be exasperating, infuriating, maddening.
"Now, Aubrey," I said, "it has come to the battle with the cook. Shall we submit to petty tyranny or shall we strike?"
"I'll tell you what," said the Angel. "I haven't quite made up my mind whether Mary is really amenable to kindness or whether she takes us for suckers."
"Oh," I gasped. I had never taken myself for a "sucker" before, and even in such good company as that of my husband it gave me a jar to hear the possibility mentioned.
"I am convinced of one thing," he went on, "Mary has been badly spoiled, and, while I have no objection to her ruling us in any way she likes, I am going to compel her to obey orders when she gets them."
"Oh, be careful!" I cried.
"I'm going to. But first I am going to investigate the labyrinths of hermind. If it is that she respects food more than she does our feelings,I'll do one thing. If it is that kindness won't work, I'll try severity.But I'm going to make that old woman obey me and have dinner on time."
The Angel delivered this alarming ultimatum without raising his voice and with no more emphasis than he would use in saying:
"May I trouble you for the salt?"
I leaned back and looked at him.
"As if you could be severe with any one, you Angel!"
From which remark the knowing can easily deduce the length of time we had been married.
It was then ten minutes to eight. We had come in at six, and at five we had telephoned her to have dinner promptly at seven.
"I hope you had a good tea," said Aubrey, looking at the clock.
"I did. It isn't that I am hungry. I'm mad," I answered, genially.
"I am not mad. I am hungry," said Aubrey.
"Being hungry for a man is the same as being mad for a woman," I observed.
Aubrey grinned.
"Now," he said, mysteriously. "Don't eat any dinner to-night, and follow my lead in everything."
"Don't eat any dinner!" I cried, in a whisper. "I am starv—"
"Hush," he whispered. "You said you weren't hungry."
Although we were only ten feet away from her and in plain view, Mary struck the Roman chime of bells, by which she always announces dinner.
As we took our seats the clock struck eight. The table was a dream of loveliness. Wedding-silver, wedding-glass, wedding-linen graced it at every turn, for Mary always decorates for us as for a banquet.
Never has the fragrant odour of soup assailed me as it did on that particular night. Mary hovered around, watching to see how we liked it. We tasted it, and laid our spoons down. We talked languidly, without noticing her.
"What's the matter with the soup?" she finally demanded when she could stand it no longer. We looked up as if surprised.
"Why, nothing," said Aubrey. "I don't care for it. That's all. Take it away."
"It will do nicely for to-morrow night," said Mary.
At that Aubrey dropped his entire cigarette into his and I put a spoonful of salt into mine.
"Isn't it good, Missis?" asked Mary of me.
"I don't know," I said, wearily. "I'm too tired to eat."
"Take it away," said Aubrey again.
"My poor dear child!" cried Mary. "Too tired to eat! But eating will do you good. Taste a bit! Try it, Missis dear!"
"No, I don't seem to care for it, and I was very hungry at seven o'clock. Don't you remember, Aubrey, I said coming up in the elevator how hungry I was?"
"I remember," said my husband. "But you are just like me. If you don't have your meals at a certain time your appetite goes."
At that Mary lifted her head and looked at us through her spectacles. Never were four more innocent eyes to be met with than ours. We looked at her calmly until she lowered her gaze. It was not an impudent nor a defiant look she gave us. It was a trial of wills. Our two against her one.
She removed the soup without more ado, and brought in a broiled chicken. Oh, oh! Shall I ever forget it! I was so hungry by that time that I could have bitten a piece out of my plate.
Mary stood by with a face as anxious as if she were standing by the death-bed of her child.
Aubrey lifted it with the carving-fork, looked at me, and said:
"Do you feel as if you could eat a little bit of this?"
A little bit! I felt as if I could have snatched it in my paws and run growling to a corner to devour the whole of it and to bury the bones for the next day.
"No," I said, wearily, leaning my head on my hand to hide my countenance."But you eat some, dear."
Aubrey laid down the carving-fork.
"No, I don't care for any."
"What time did you have your luncheon, dear?" I asked, anxiously.
"At half-past twelve. I had an appointment with Squires at one."
"And what did you have?" I continued, for Mary's face was expressive of the liveliest horror.
"A club sandwich and a glass of beer."
Mary looked at the clock. It was half-past eight.
"Oh, my dear!" I said, mournfully. "It is no wonder you can't eat. Your stomach is too exhausted to feel hunger."
Mary ran around the table for no reason at all. She took the cover off the best silver dish. It was a dish of fresh peas cooked with onions and lettuce. Petits pois à la paysanne! I had taught her myself! I simply glared at it. To this day I can smell those onions!
"If I could have had those at seven o'clock," said Aubrey, sadly, "I could have eaten every one of them. They look delicious, Mary, but I really—no, don't urge me! Take the dinner off."
"Oh, boss dear, if you'd just take a lick at them!" implored Mary. "Just one lick—there's a handsome man!"
Aubrey bit his lips. I was trembling on the verge of hysterical laughter.
Mary implored in vain. With our famished eyes on the peas and chicken we saw them disappear through the swinging door. Mary in her agony was talking aloud.
"Keep it up!" whispered the Angel. "This will fetch her! She's ready to cry."
"Oh, but Aubrey," I moaned. "I'm ready to gnaw the napkin and eat my slippers. Please come and tighten my belt!"
"I know now how explorers and castaways feel," murmured the Angel. "For heaven's sake, what comes next?"
"Asparagus!" I wailed. "Fresh asparagus. I paid ninety cents for it!And she's cooked it with her white sauce—oh!"
The door opened and Mary, with pink cheeks and dancing eyes, brought in and deposited before me my favourite dish. Asparagus on toast. I looked at it longingly, feverishly! I was famishing. My throat was dry and my eyes had a savage glare. I had heard of men going mad for want of food. I know now how they felt.
At first I could not speak. I was obliged to swallow violently.
"There!" cried Mary, triumphantly. "You can't pass that up!"
"Alas!" I sighed, shaking my head. I looked at her and felt simply murderous. That white-haired old woman's obstinacy in not giving us our dinner on time was the cause of all my misery. I resolved to rub it in. Her face was a study.
"Did you ever," I said, mournfully, "see me refuse asparagus before?"
"You're never going to refuse it!" exclaimed Mary, incredulously. "Missis! I used a pint of cream, to say nothing of the butter! Why, it's a sin! It's a mortal sin in you not to try it! See, Missis, let me put a little on your plate. I'll feed it to you like as if you were a baby! I will indeed!"
"No," I said, clutching at the table-cloth to keep from falling upon that dish of asparagus and shovelling it down my throat in huge handfuls,—"no, I couldn't! Mary! I am too weak, really, I think I am starving!"
I leaned back and closed my eyes. The clock struck nine.
"You've had nothing to eat all day!" cried Mary. "You had only a bite for your lunch, and that was eight hours ago! Oh, Missis, dear! Ain't I the mean dog! Let me make you a cup of tea! Missis dear! In the name of God eat something! Do!"
"No," I said. "I have always been this way. If I go five minutes over the time when I expect my dinner, I feel just this way. I can't eat."
With which astonishing lie, I leaned back as if death were already looming up in the distance.
Mary made one more attack. Salad was the Angel's weak point as asparagus was mine, and Mary always made a dream of beauty out of it. She scorned "fatiguer la laitue" as the French do. Instead she kept it in a bowl of water until thoroughly "awake," as she called it. Then carefully examining each leaf separately, she tied them in a wet cloth and laid them "spang on the ice," which course of treatment rendered them so crisp that to cut them with a sharp salad-fork was always to get a little dressing splashed in one's eye. Furthermore she arranged them in the best cut-glass dish in symmetrical rows with the scarlet tomatoes tucked invitingly in the centre. She presented us with such a dish on this evening. Then when Aubrey (who will be remembered when he is no more, not for his moral qualities nor for his domestic virtues, but for the skill with which he used to mix a salad dressing) went to work and prepared one from tarragon, vinegar, oil, Nepaul pepper, paprika, black and cayenne pepper, to say nothing of plenty of salt,—words fail me! I simply pass away at the recollection.
I have never been able to make up my mind whether Mary suspected us or not. Of course we overdid the part, but it was a physical necessity. I can go without a thing altogether, but I cannot be moderate. I really thought I was not hungry until Aubrey told me not to eat, and that, of course, was enough to make any woman ravenous. If he had told me "to buck up and eat a good dinner," of course I could only have nibbled.
She broke out again, and pleaded hard for us to drink our coffee, but we were obdurate.
Finally we got up from the table and Mary removed the cloth, muttering to herself. I overheard some of it, but where any other cook would have been furious at us for not eating her delicious dinner, the dear old soul's rage was all directed against herself, and she was vituperating herself in language which would not have gone through the mails.
But now the question was where and how to get our dinner so that Mary would not suspect. To send her to church and forage in our own ice-box was out of the question, for she knows to a dot how much there is of everything, and I cannot take an olive that she does not miss it and come and ask me if I took it, to avert suspicion from the ice-man. Furthermore, it we both went out, she might suspect. And we had taught her too heroic a lesson to go and spoil it by carelessness now.
"What shall we do?" murmured my husband.
"There's only one thing to do," I said, in low, even tones, with my book before my face. "Go out and buy something ready cooked,—something which leaves no trace,—something small enough to go into your overcoat pocket, but oh, in the name of heaven, get enough!"
Mary came in as the outer door slammed.
"Where's boss gone?" she demanded. Perhaps it was only my guilty conscience which made her tones sound suspicious.
"Just over to Columbus Avenue to get a paper," I said.
"Oh!"
I waited in a guilty and trembling silence for the Angel to return. What if Mary should take it into her head to come and help him off with his overcoat? She often did. I softly opened the outer door. If she didn't hear him enter, all would be well.
Presently he came up. He got out of the elevator stealthily, and I met him with my finger on my lip.
"Aren't you going to take off your hat?" I said, as he stole down the corridor.
"Can't!" he whispered. "I've got cream puffs in it."
I only waited to ward off an attack from the rear. I put my head in at the butler's pantry.
"Mary, I have such a headache that I am going to bed now, so be as quiet as you can, won't you?"
"I'll come and open the bed for you right this instantaneous minute, my poor dear child," she said, taking her hands out of the dish-water.
"No, I'll open it! I don't mind in the least," I said, eagerly.
"Not at all! Do you think I'll be letting you lift your hand when you're sick?"
Finding that I could not prevent her, I hurried down the hall to discover the Angel looking wildly for a place of escape—still with his hat on. I motioned him into the bathroom, and his coat-tails disappeared therein, just as Mary loomed into view.
It took her a full quarter of an hour to open that bed, for nothing would do but she must unhook me. And all that time my thoughts were on the cream puffs. I did hope that Aubrey would have sense enough to put them on the wash-stand.
Finally I got rid of Mary, and released the Angel. He clanked as he came in, but that was two pint bottles of beer.
I locked the door, and then he unloaded. Besides the beer and cream puffs, he had four devilled crabs and two dill pickles, four club sandwiches, some Roquefort cheese, and some Bent biscuits.
He was obliged to make one more dangerous pilgrimage to the front hall to slam the door and hang up his hat and coat, otherwise Mary would have gone out after him. We have such a competent cook.
Finally we sat down and gorged on that impossible mixture. We had only Aubrey's pocket-knife, a paper-cutter, and a button-hook to eat with, and rather than to stop and wash out his shaving-cup we drank out of the bottles.
We ate until we felt the need of dyspepsia tablets, but still there was some left. This Aubrey did up in a neat package, we raised the window, turned out the lights, and threw it far, far out into the night. We listened and heard it fall in a neighbour's back yard.
Now, if we had stopped there, all would have been well, but Fate tempted us in the person of a vile and nasty little curly white dog, with a pink skin and a blue ribbon around her neck, whose mistress used to lead her up and down in front of our apartment-house every evening. She was a very nasty little dog, badly spoiled, and we had longed to kick her for six months, but her mistress was always there and we couldn't.
But oh, joy! On this particular night, she was in the back yard all alone, yapping and whining to get indoors. Clearly this was the best place for the empty beer bottles.
"Don't hit her, Aubrey. Just aim for the cement walk. That will scare her to death."
The Angel seldom follows my wicked counsel, but this was the hand of Providence. No one, who has not owned a big dog, can know how we hated this miserable, pampered little cur.
So Aubrey took aim. The beer bottle hurtled through the air. We stepped back and listened. It crashed on the walk, and such a series of agonized yelps from the frightened little beast resulted as I never before had heard. We clutched each other in silent ecstasy. Fortunately the pup's mistress had not heard.
Emboldened by success we stole forth again, and shied the second bottle. But that time Providence was against us, for, at the identical moment that the bottle hit the corner of the house and flew into a million pieces, the door opened and the dog's mistress appeared.
The crash was something awful. Nobody was hit or hurt, but the woman shrieked and the Angel and I fell to the floor as if shot. Instantly windows flew up, and as each head appeared the infuriated woman accused it of having thrown the bottle. I reached for the Angel's hand as we grovelled on the floor, and our former spirit returned as indignant denials were followed by more indignant slamming of windows.
Finally—silence. Two hands sneaked up in the darkness and pulled our window down.
"We could prove an alibi," I giggled, "for Mary would go on the stand and swear that I was in bed prostrated with a headache!"
The next night the soup was on the table at five minutes before seven, and we heard that the white dog was laid up for a week with an "attaque des nerfs."
"Who would have thought," I sighed, in delight, "of the luck of fetchingMary and that white dog both in one evening!"
Trouble began to brew for the best man at my bridesmaid's dinner, but it was all his fault. He says it was mine.
I claim, and I think that all girls will support me in this theory, that at all wedding functions, such as teas, receptions, luncheons, and dinners, the best man owes the maid of honour the first and most of his attentions. It is her due, and no matter whether he likes her or hates her; no matter if he is already in love with another girl, or sees one there that he would like to be in love with, he belongs, for the wedding festivities, to the first bridesmaid. It is like the girl your hostess assigns to you at dinner,—youmustbe nice to her.
So Cary Farquhar thought, and so I think. Artie Beguelin said:
"Then you oughtn't to have invited Flora Forsyth to the bridesmaid's dinner."
Well, perhaps I oughtn't. But I did, because she asked to come. One can't refuse a request of that sort. Even Aubrey admits that.
Flora was a dreamy, trusting blonde. She was an innocent appearing little thing, and although she was just out of college, I believed she would faint at the idea of a cigarette in a girl's fingers or any of the mad things college girls are supposed to do when larking. She had no sense of humour, and I simply could not think of her as up to any mischief. That is why, when she said she had fallen in love with me, I believed her. She knew I was to have Cary for my only attendant, but she begged so innocently to come to the bridesmaid's dinner and to sit with the family behind the white ribbon, that I hadn't the heart to say no. That is why she was at the dinner, and what happened there you shall hear presently.
Arthur Beguelin was the Angel's best man. He, too, was Aubrey's sole attendant, for we had no ushers.
Artie was neither clever nor stupid, but that gentle, amiable cross between the two which made him fair game for a designing girl. He was better than clever. He was magnetic, as Cary and Flora found to their sorrow.
His father had been enormously wealthy, but his vast property had slipped out of his keeping, and had become involved in a lawsuit of such dimensions and such hopeless duration that Artie might just as well consider himself as a ward in chancery, and be done with it.
This loss of fortune, however, instead of demoralizing him, had been his salvation. It set him to work, and made a man of him. He never believed that he would inherit a dollar of his father's, so he prepared to make his own way in the world, regardless of golden hopes.
But not so his friends. His prospects, hazy as they were, made him most interesting to match-making mothers, and as his indomitable courage made him interesting to the other and better sort, you will see that Artie was pursued rather more than most eligible young men. This pursuit had made him wary and cautious. Had he been more introspective, it would have embittered him; but it shows his amiable modesty when I assert that Artie only fought shy of the more aggressive anglers, whose landing-nets were always in evidence, while he never refused to swim nimbly around and even nibble at the bait of the more tactful.
I have described him thus carefully, because it just shows how the most wary of men can be caught napping by the right kind of cleverness, and which was the right girl for him it took both us and him some time to discover.
At first sight, it seemed to be Flora. As Aubrey said: "It was all off with him from the moment he saw her." He had been the stroke in the Yale crew during two glorious years of victory, and, like most men who gloried in the companionship of athletic girls, he elected to fall in love with Flora, who, the first time she met him, wanted to know the difference between a putter and a bunker, which so tickled Artie that he put in two good hours explaining it to her.
Cary had known Flora for some time, but two girls could not have been more unlike. Cary was rich, courted, and flattered. She had only to express a wish to have it granted, yet, strange anomaly, she was the most unselfish girl I ever knew, and was always going out of her way to be nice to people.
Flora was poor. She went to college by means of a loan from a rich woman, and kept herself there by winning scholarships. She expected to teach for a living, and she hated the prospect. She had to work hard for everything she had, which was probably the reason why she was so selfish. To be sure, she was always offering you things, but it was either after some one else had offered first, or else she offered things you couldn't possibly want. And as to offering to do things for you, I never saw her equal at the formula, "I am going down-town. Can't I do something for you?" Yet if you by any chance made the mistake of saying, "That's awfully good of you. Iwouldlike three yards of French nainsook," in half an hour Flora would come in with the story that she had been telephoned out to luncheon and wasn't going down-town, or else had a headache and couldn't go, after all; or, if she went, she did her own shopping first and came in breathless with a "I'm so tired! I went everywhere for your French nainsook, but every shop was just out of it. I triedsohard, and now you'll think I am just stupid andcan'tshop."
At which you always had to comfort her and do something extra for her, to show that you didn't blame her in the least. Whenever she had grossly imposed upon you, Flora had a way of looking at you with what I called the "dog look,"—a humble, faithful, adoring, "don't-kick-me-because-I-love-you-so" look, which used to give me what Angel calls the jiggle-jaggles, which is only another name for twitching nerves,—either mental or physical.
However, I have noticed that these people who are always offering their "Can't I do something for you?" never expect to be taken up. I suppose it isn't in human nature any more to be helpful to a friend. The answer to that question is "Thank you so much, dear, for offering, but I really don't want a thing!" That cements the friendship.
Cary was honest, straightforward, and thoughtful. Flora was crafty, deceitful, and brilliant, but her innocent eyes and baby ways made her cleverness seem like that of a precocious child, so that she always disarmed suspicion.
She deceived me so skilfully and completely that I find myself thoroughly mixed in describing her, for at one moment I tell how she appeared to me at first, and the next I find myself setting her forth as I found her after Cary and Aubrey had set a trap to make me see her in her true light. They were obliged to set a trap, for my loyalty is of the blind, stupid sort, which will not be convinced, and all the arguments in the world would only have made me more ardently champion her as a friend.
You could not call Cary athletic, because she did not go in for out-of-door sports to the exclusion of the gentler forms of amusement. But whatever she did, she did so well that you would think she had given most of her time to the mastering of that one accomplishment. But here is where her cleverness showed most. It was not that she really did everything, and did it perfectly. It was that she never attempted anything which she had not mastered. For example, she never played whist, because she had no memory, no finesse, and because she played games of chance so much better. She could never settle herself down to a multitude of details, but she could plan and execute a coup of such brilliancy that it would make your hair stand on end. Such was Cary Farquhar, and her most successful coup was the way she compelled me to see Flora Forsyth in her true colours.
Sometimes I think I am quite clever. Again I think I am a perfect fool. And the agains come oftener than the sometimes.
I would enjoy making a continuous narrative of this story, as I could if I were writing a book, but this is a record of real life, and real life does not happen in finished chapters. If you try to make it, you either have to leave out a bit, or go back and repeat something.
Thus, in telling this story of Flora, if I told the perfect faith I had in her at first and of how utterly I came to know and despise her afterward, I should show to everybody the fool I made of myself, and that exhibition I prefer to keep as much to myself as possible. The Angel knows it, and that is bad enough. So that is why I must make a hodge-podge of it, telling a bit here and a bit there, just as things happened, and pretending that I saw through her from the first—which, however, I didn't.
But, in order to give some idea of her methods, which are of interest as a human document, I must set down faithfully how I came to be drawn into this love-story, and how the Angel and Cary pulled me out.
This is the very beginning of it.
If you knew our best man, you probably would not be surprised to make the discovery that I made—to wit: that two girls were in love with him at the same time, for the most ordinary of men have sometimes a powerful attraction for the most superior of girls, and Arthur Beguelin was much above the ordinary, in looks, manners, breeding, and wealth. He was, as I have said, almost rich, which would of itself, to the cynic, preclude his being at all nice. But he was nice. I liked him, the Angel liked him, and these two girls loved him.
I will admit, however, that I was surprised,—just a little,—at first, but after I thought about it, I said to Aubrey, "Well, why not?" He said, "Why not what?"
"Whyshouldn'ttwo girls be in love with him?"
"They should," said the Angel, pleasantly. "There is no doubt in the world that they should. But who are the girls and who is the man?"
I thought of course that he knew what I was talking about, or I shouldn't have begun in the middle like that, but after all, if youdobegin in the middle, you can often skip the whole beginning, and hurry along to the end.
"Why, Artie Beg, to be sure! Who else? And as to the girls—well, as I discovered it for myself, I shall not be betraying their confidence to say that the girls are—will youpromisenot to tell nor to interfere in anyway?"
"Of course," said the Angel.
"Well, the girls are Flora Forsyth and Cary Farquhar."
"Flora Forsyth!" exclaimed the Angel, with a wry face.
"Now, Aubrey, whathaveyou against that poor girl? To me she is one of the most fascinating creatures I ever saw. If I were a man, I should be crazy about her."
"Then if you had been Samson, Delilah would have made a fool of you just as easily as she did of him."
"But Flora is no Delilah, Aubrey."
"She's worse!" said the Angel, shortly.
Aubrey leaned back in his Morris chair and puffed at his pipe.Presently he spoke:
"Those two girls are both clever,—as clever as they make 'em,—but Cary's cleverness is full of ozone, while Flora's is permeated with a narcotic. Cary's tricks make one laugh, but the other girl's give one the shivers."
"Oh, is it as bad as that?" I said, in affright. "Don't you like her?"
"Like her!" reflected the Angel, slowly. "I hate her."
I gasped. Never, never had my husband expressed even a settled dislike of any one before, while as to the word "hate"—
"Oh, Aubrey!" I cried, tearfully. "Iwishyou had said it before. The fact is, I've—well, I've invited her to visit me and she says she'll come."
If I expected an explosion, I was mistaken. Aubrey bit into his pipe-stem and sat looking at me for a moment without speaking, a kind, wistful look which completely undid me, and made me resolved never,neveragain to do a single thing without consulting him first. Then he leaned forward and slowly began to empty and clean his pipe.
"You like her very much?" he said, tentatively.
"I do, indeed!" I exclaimed, enthusiastically. "And she issofond of you. She fairly adores you. If you would onlytryto like her, Aubrey—she likes you so much—don't smile that way. You don't do her justice. Indeed you don't. Why, she is the dearest, most confiding, innocent little thing, just out of college last month—a baby couldn't have more clinging, dependent ways."
"I'm glad she is coming to visit you, if that's the way you feel about her," he said.
I drew a sigh of relief.Somehusbands would have made such a fuss that their wives would have felt obliged to cancel the invitation. Aubrey was different.
"How did you come to invite her?" he asked, presently.
I smiled in pleased anticipation of a good long talk with my husband, in which I could explain everything.
"Why, you know at the wedding I saw that Artie was very much taken with her,—and—"
"First, tell me how she came to sit with the family, inside the white ribbon?"
"Why, she wrote and asked if she couldn't. She said she loved me so she felt as if she were losing a sister, and that she wanted to sit with mother and mourn with the family."
Aubrey grinned and I felt foolish.
"And you believed her, you silly little cat!"
"It does sound idiotic to repeat it, but it read as if she meant it," I said, blushing.
"Never mind, dear," said the Angel. "You are all right."
Now, when Aubrey says I am "all right," it means that I am all wrong, but that he loves me in spite of it.
"Bee says," I said between laughing and crying, "that I am just like a stray dog. A pat on the head and a few kind words, and I'd follow anybody off."
"It would take something more substantial than that to make Bee follow anybody off," observed Bee's brother-in-law.
"Well, and so she and he were together all that evening, and afterward they corresponded. But Cary, being my bridesmaid, had, of course, the first claim on Artie's attention, but he was so taken with Flora that he sort of neglected Cary. Then, Cary being so spoiled by being rich and courted and flattered, was piqued into trying to make him notice her, which old stupid Artie refused to do, but tagged around after Flora as if she had hypnotized him. Then Cary must have been quite roused, for the first thing I knew she was showing unmistakable signs of its being the real thing with her, though, of course, she would deny it with oaths if I taxed her, while Flora—"
I stopped in sudden confusion.
"I forget," I faltered. "I said that neither had confided in me, but—"
Aubrey grinned.
"But Flora has," he supplemented. "She has confessed her love, not blushingly, but tumultuously, brazenly, tempestuously, and has begged you to help her!"
I paused aghast. Aubrey had exactly stated the case.
"Well, she told Cary, too," I said, in self-extenuation, "so she can't care very much that I've told you."
"Oh, no," said Aubrey, cheerfully. "She'll tell me herself the first chance she gets."
"She told Cary that she had told me, so we felt at liberty to talk it over," I added.
"She did?"
"And Cary was perfectly disgusted with her, and asked what I was going to do. I said I didn't know. Then what do you think she did? Cary asked me to ask Flora to visit me! What do you think of that for a bluff?"
Again Aubrey grinned. He shook his head.
"That was no bluff, Faith dear. That was a move in a game of chess. Cary Farquhar is the choicest—unmarried—girl I know! By Jove, she's a corker!"
"She just did it to throw me off—to show me thatshedidn't want him!" I persisted.
The Angel shook his head and smiled inscrutably.
"When does she come?" he asked.
"Next week."
Aubrey pulled at his pipe.
"There will be something doing here next week, I'm thinking."
There was something doing.
First, I told old Mary that I was going to have company.
One ordinarily does not ask permission of one's cook, but Mary was such a mother to me that I felt the announcement to be no more than her due.
"Who is it, Missus, dear?"
"Miss Flora Forsyth. Have you ever heard me speak of her?"
"Do you mean that blonde on the mantelpiece?" she asked, in the conversational tone of one who but passed the time o' day.
"Mary!" I said.
She walked up to Flora's picture, took it down, looked at it, and put it back.
"Well," I said, tentatively, "what do you think of her?"
"What do I think of her?" demanded Mary, wheeling on me so suddenly that I dodged. "I think she is a little blister—that's what I think of her. And you'll rue the day you ever asked her into your house."
Ordinarily one would reprove one's cook for such freedom of speech, but I had brought it on myself. Therefore I saved my breath, put on my hat, and went out, ruminating and somewhat shaken in my mind to have the two household authorities against me.
However, true to my determination to make her visit as attractive as possible, I purchased at least a dozen sorts of fine French marmalades, jellies, sweets, and fancy pickles, such as schoolgirls love.
She had told me so many times how she had always wanted her breakfast in her room, but had never been able to have it, that I decided to give her that privilege in my house. I told Mary with some misgivings, and showed her the things I had bought. To my surprise, Mary assented joyfully. I never knew why until after Flora left. Then Mary told me. I even selected the china she was to use on the breakfast-tray. It was blue and gold. Flora loved blue. Then I took a final look at everything, gave a few last orders, and dismissed all worry from my mind.
Her room,the guest chamberof the Jardines, was fresh for her. No one had ever slept in that bed, fluttered those curtains, nor written at that desk. Flora would be its first occupant.
And how her blond beauty matched its pale blue and gold loveliness! It gave me thrills of delight to think of her in the midst of it all.
But of course it was Cary I loved. Flora simply fascinated me. She possessed the attractions of a Circe, but Cary was worth a million of her, and I knew it and I wanted her to have Artie Beg, or anybody else on earth she fancied. The whole proposition was as plain as day when I came to think about it. I was Cary's champion, Cary's friend, and intended Cary to win. Why, therefore, had I permitted myself to be inveigled into asking Flora to visit me, under the supposition that I was going to help her? It was not because Cary had begged me to. Not at all. It was Flora herself who had managed it, I reflected, and it gave me a bitter, uncomfortable twinge to realize that whatever Flora had wanted me to do, in our brief friendship, I had done, no matter whose judgment it went against.
Had the girl hypnotic power, or was I a weak fool to be flattered into doing her bidding?
I don't like to think of myself as a weak fool, even for the sake of argument.
The two girls had hated each other at sight, as was natural. Cary admitted the reason with glorious frankness.
"Of course I hate her," she said, with a lift of her sleek brown head, "didn't she usurp my prerogatives at the wedding? The best man belongs, for that evening alone, to the maid of honour—he can't escape it—it is his fate. Common civility should have chained him to my chariot wheels, but with that white-headed Lilith at work on him, with her half-shut eyes, she had him queered before he even saw me. But wait. My turn will come."
Flora said to me:
"Of course I hate her, becauseyoulove her. You love her better than you love me. You have known her longer—that's the only reason! She doesn't carethatfor you. It's because you are married, and can give her a good time that she pretends to care for you.Iknow. Oh, you may laugh and think I am jealous or insane or anything you like. Well, then, Iamjealous, for I love you better than anybody in the world, and I want you to love me in the same way. I love you better than I love my mother—or my father—or even Artie Beg! And I am jealous of every one you speak to. I am jealous most of all of Aubrey, for you have eyes for no one on earth but him. I could hate him when I think of it."
At that Ididlaugh, but she was a good actress, and said it as if she meant it.
Flora always acted as if she knew of my repressed childhood, and of how, all my life, I had thirsted for praise. No matter if it had been put on with a trowel, as hers undoubtedly was, I would have wrapped myself in its tropical warmth and luxuriance, and never paused to quarrel with its effulgence. While dear old Cary let her actions speak, and seldom put her affection for me into words. But she had been on the eve of sailing for a winter in Egypt when my hurried wedding preparations and frantic telegram arrested her. The party sailed without her, and she did not try to follow. And that was only one of the many sacrifices she had made for me, and made without a word, too.
She was a girl of thought and of ideas, but unfortunately she was a great heiress, and fortune-hunters had made her suspicious and cynical. Only Aubrey and I knew how glorious she could be when she let herself out and expressed her real self.
The first thing Flora did to make me uncomfortable was to pump theAngel about Artie's law-suit.
It was so intricate, so long drawn out, and so enormous in its proportions, that it bade fair to resemble the famous Jarndyce and Jarndyce. We had never mentioned it to Artie, but Flora, after a few reluctant words from Aubrey, persuaded Artie, in the easiest way imaginable, to tell her everything about it, from its inception. She told me she had even read half a dozen of her uncle's law-books, which bore upon the knotty points Artie had described to her. Instead of arousing his suspicions of mercenary motives, her innocent manner and flowerlike face deceived him into believing that her interest was very commendable. She explained that she had always wanted to study law, but that her father wouldn't let her, so that she always coaxed her friends to describe their law-suits to her, and then she read up on them by herself. Artie thought this was wonderful. So it was.
Cary would never listen to a word about it, nor read about it in the papers; nor could she be inveigled into expressing an opinion about it one way or the other. Her pride revolted from appearing even to know that he had such prospects, faint and distant though they were.
When Flora came, Mary put on her spectacles before she opened the door.I noticed the look she gave all three of us. It did not speak well forFlora.
But, at first, her shyness and modesty left nothing to be desired. Her clothes were simple even to plainness, her voice soft and deprecating, and her manner deferential in the extreme. She was always asking advice, and where that advice was given, she always followed it. Flattery could go no further.
Artie came to see her, morning, noon, and night. I was horrified to discover how far things seemed to have progressed, for, after all, it was Cary whomusthave Artie if she wanted him.
Cary called on Flora once, and we returned it, but she did not come again. So I resolved on a dinner, and Cary promised to come. The others were to be the Jimmies, Bee, and three more persons so insignificant, so vapid, so entirely not worth describing that, in a race, they would not even be mentioned as "also rans." In short, they were the typical dinner-guests the hostess always fills in with.
I worked hard on that dinner. Flora offered to help, but Mary, without actually refusing her assistance, managed to do without it, and I did not realize until afterward how quickly Flora accepted her fate, and curled herself up luxuriously on Aubrey's couch in Aubrey's particular corner to read, while I bleached the almonds which she had offered to do.
Flora kept me well informed of the progress of Artie's passion for her, and I could do nothing. I was surprised at her confiding such details to any one, dismayed for Cary's sake, and worried as to how it would turn out.
Finally the evening of the dinner came. I dressed and ran out to the kitchen to see if everything was all right, for Mary was so jealous she refused to let me engage an assistant, but doggedly persisted in preparing and serving the dinner entirely by herself.
To my surprise, I found the dining-room and kitchen shades pulled up to the tops of the windows, while every handsome dish Mary intended to use, and all the extra silver, were carefully placed on top of the laundry-tubs. Mary, apparently unconscious of observation, was flying around with pink cheeks, and the eyes behind the spectacles snapping with excitement.
"Don't say a word, Missus," she said, sitting on her heels before the oven door. "I did it for the benefit of the rubber factory opposite. They think I don't notice, but look at them windows. Not a light in any of 'em, but all the curtains moving just a little. Do they think I don't know there's a rubber behind every damn one of 'em? Don't laugh, Missus dear, and don't look over there, whatever you do. If they want a look at the things we eat, why let 'em! They know what they cost, but I'll bet they never do more than ask the price of 'em, and then buy soup-bones and canned vegetables for their own stomachs."