Some of Us Are Married/Boggybrae
BOGGYBRAE
LESLIE, there's something I forgot to ask you last night."
Winifred Iverson, in a crisp, rose-striped morning frock that set off her pretty dark hair and eyes, leaned earnestly over the Japanese breakfast tray toward her husband. He was a tall, fair, pleasant-faced young man, who, after the traditional habit of the commuter, was eating his bacon and eggs with one eye roving competently sideways over the newspaper on the table near him. Between bites he made absent-minded replies to the little flaxen-curled Matilda, sitting beside him in her high chair, well bibbed against the overflowing of her tipping spoon, held tight in her small fist.
"Keep still for a moment, Matilda. Leslie, isn't it 'most time for a directors' meeting?"
"Yes, there's one to-morrow—Wednesday."
"Oh, I'm so glad! You're going to it, aren't you?"
"Yes, I suppose so."
Mrs. Iverson gave a sigh of relief; her knitted brow smoothed. For attending the meetings of the board a ten-dollar gold-piece was the perquisite of each member; Leslie always gave his coin to her.
"That just helps me out. I want to buy the new rug this week without fail; this old one is so dreadful I can't ask another soul into the house until I do. I've been saving up my Christmas and birthday money for nearly a year, and if I don't get the rug now the money will just melt, in these hard times. Mother and I saw the kind I want yesterday—awfully good value, but I just needed ten dollars more. She wanted to give it to me, but I wouldn't let her, with all she's done already."
"That was right."
Mr. Iverson rose; kissed his wife and child; swooped for overcoat, hat, and newspaper; made for the door, and then turned back with his usual sunny expression, to say: "I'll be home a little late for dinner. Your father has asked me up to the links with him this afternoon; there's nothing doing at the office, so I might as well get off" and was gone.
His wife sat looking after him with a slight knitting of the brow. When a man played golf it seemed to take an unholy grip on him; it literally took precedence of everything else. If Leslie could get off early, there were ever so many odd jobs to be done in the house; there was no sense in hiring a man at so much an hour when one was trying to keep down expenses. She couldn't realize that to do little odd jobs at the present moment irritated him inexpressibly—in some foolish way it irritated him that he did have this expensive time to waste on them; there was nothing to sugar the thought, as there was in the joys of golf.
Her own father, kind Mr. Brentwood, abetted Leslie in the latter, saying that he needed both the exercise and the diversion in this crucial period of affairs; perhaps he was right Leslie had looked unusually anxious lately, in contrast to his habitual sunniness. But women did things very differently. She herself had been conscientiously economical on a reduced allowance during this war strain which had so greatly affected the trade of the Electrographic Company. She had at times a feeling that she could have run her husband's business better than he did; he would keep that expensive secretary, when she had told him a dozen times that he could get a woman to fill the place for half the price; it seemed odd, too, that he should take afternoons off for pleasure when business was slack.
Winifred hustled around putting things to rights; this was her busy morning—there was a meeting at Mrs. Bannard's at ten o'clock to sew for the Red Cross; but her mother had promised to do the marketing for her In view of the uncertain times, the High Cost of Living was being enthusiastically grappled with; the era of telephoning for supplies had come to an end,—in theory at least—the nicest people coming in their motors or on foot with baskets or string bags, and filling them at the newly established market, where those nice farmers were so pleased to sell to you. The Price of Food had become a Cult, to be discussed on all occasions.
Even the little Matilda had a market-basket about the size of a peanut, with which she trotted along by the side of her proud grandmother, when the latter stopped for her, as to-day. Mrs. Brentwood was fresh-coloured, with slightly gray hair, and an expression of calm that contrasted with the anxious tenseness of the daughter.
"I see that your screen doors are not off yet, Winifred," she remarked.
"No, I've been waiting for Leslie to take them down; of course the season has been late. I thought he'd do it to-day, but he won't be home in time; he's going with Father to play golf. He does caddie for himself now, but still"
"Oh," said the mother understandingly, "it's such beautiful weather!" She hesitated a moment: "How about the rug? I want to say again"
"No, you won't," interrupted the daughter, smiling, with her arms around the other. "I'm to have the ten-dollar gold piece when Leslie goes to his directors' meeting to-morrow. I'll have the rug this week, so it's all right."
"All right," echoed the little Matilda, as, her tiny hand burrowing into the fond grandmother's, the two went off; the child in her white woolly coat and rosetted cap looking like a little white rabbit skipping along.
At the very moment of her confident assertion, Winifred had had that strange, psychic double-feeling that comes to us at times, apparently without reason, that what she said was not true. Perhaps gold pieces would no longer be given to members of the board; perhaps there would be no meeting; perhaps She seemed to be full of uncomfortable sensations.
Everything was in full progress when Winifred reached the Bannards', with a great tearing off of muslin and cutting out with large shears, and the soft whirr of sewing machines, and the busy click of knitting needles. Each woman had a deep, unspoken sentiment for the sick or wounded that she would never see; but after the usual horrified remarks on the latest news of the war, and recitals from the letters of soldiers abroad, matters nearer home were taken up.
Pretty, gentle Mrs. Chandor announced the fact that she had bought eight large tomatoes for five cents apiece in the market that very morning; while Mrs. Rickland, a much older woman, confessed that she hadn't been there yet; her girls had been out to a dance until two o'clock the night before, and she had sat up for them.
"Well, at our house Brunhilda and Ermentrude each have a latch-key," said Mrs. Fremer, another matron, of an imposing Roman presence, "their work often keeps them in town so late; but I can't quite make up my mind to let Tucker have one, though his father thinks I ought to; with boys it's so different—you never can tell what they may do. I feel now that I know Tucker's every thought."
There was a moment's delicate silence, which seemed to cover some dissent from this last statement among the listeners.
"Ah!" breathed the elegant Mrs. Roberts, her marble-like dark eyes roving finely around the group. "A woman's influence is so much!"
"Well, I've never found her influence amount to such a great deal," returned the charming Mrs. Silverton; her blue eyes gleamed under their long lashes. "Here I've been for five years trying to teach my husband not to throw his wet towels in a wad on the bathroom floor, and he still does it."
"I think men stay just about the same, no matter what you do," said Nell Crandall comfortably.
"Oh, my dear!" Mrs. Fremer shook her head. "It is easy to pass over these things lightly; but when you see men deteriorating because of the lack of the higher feminine ideal, and because women shirk their duty, it is a very serious matter indeed. Everything depends upon the wife and mother! There was Mrs. Laurence, over at the Ridge—she isn't here to-day, is she? She told me herself that her husband wasn't going to vote at the last local election because he wasn't interested in it, and she said to him: 'Will, I haven't the ballot yet, I'm sorry to say, but you have, and I think you ought to be ashamed not to use it!' So he voted, though he said it didn't make any difference, for the other side got in as usual. But it's the principle that counts."
Mrs. Roberts nodded solemnly. "You can't get away from it—the responsibility. Of course it puts more on the woman all the time, but we're used to that! Now there is Clementine Wilmer—she isn't here, is she?—the way her husband neglects his business for golf is simply dreadful. He goes past every single afternoon with his clubs. I think she is very wrong to allow it. The home depends on the woman, and the nation depends on the home—you can't get away from that. I think myself that only unmarried men should play golf."
"My husband doesn't like me to stay in the house all the time; he likes me to have something interesting to tell him at dinner," said the swan-necked Mrs. Carpenter seriously.
"Oh, of course," said Winifred, who had been listening deeply to the conversation. She turned now to Mrs. Fremer, who was gathering up her work as she rose to go. "I saw Brunhilda as I came along, Mrs. Fremer; how pretty she looks! I suppose you like Mr. Phillips very much."
"Well, I've only met him once—Brunhilda didn't care to bring him out to the house until after they were engaged," said the mother. "She said he would see enough of the family afterward. I said at once: 'Brunhilda, I can trust to your intuitions; if he suits you, that is enough for me.' Of course she had only known him a short time; still"
"Oh, goodness, I've begun to think it doesn't make any difference whether you know them two days or two years," said Mrs. Silverton, her eyes sparkling. "You never find out a man's character until you're married to him, and then you don't! They keep doing the most unexpected things!—Has Mrs. Fremer gone? I wouldn't trust to a girl's intuition too much myself. What is it, Winifred?"
"Only that I expect the meeting next Friday to be at my house," said Winifred loudly, with the satisfied thought that the new rug would be there several days before that. She had made up her mind to clinch the possession of it and stop this feeling of uncertainty.
The mark of care, as Winifred noticed quickly, was still on Leslie's face when he came home, in spite of the afternoon's golf. But he smiled with a swiftly approving glance as he met her dark eyes—Winifred had very clear eyes; a sweet nobleness of purpose, earnestly desirous of all the best things, shone at times unconsciously in them. He touched her cheek with a little affectionate gesture.
"Well, how have things gone to-day?" he asked as they were seated at the dinner table.
"Oh, pretty well." She heroically forbore to mention that the screen doors were still up. "I'm sorry I had to put Matilda to bed before you came. You seem tired; didn't you have a good game?"
"Oh, yes; good enough. I guess I'll have to cut out golf after this, though; it's getting late. We had to let a lot more men go to-day from the shop; it's pretty hard. Oh, the business will come out all right, but it's slow work; it gets me some days."
"Are you still keeping that secretary?"
"Yes."
"Well, I don't think that's fair to the others, Leslie, when you can hire a stenographer for half the price."
He curbed a movement of impatience. "You don't understand—I've told you before that he's a protégé of Nichols—it's business to keep him."
"Well, it doesn't seem fair to me."
"All right; suppose we call it even! There's the telephone."
He had leaped to his feet at the sound, and was trying to answer it the next moment. "It seems to be long-distance—Hello! hello! Who did you say? Oh, Mr. Dorimon! No, not so busy as we might be. Well, I've about given it up for this season, but—Why, that's awfully kind of you, Mr. Dorimon! Sure I will; nicest thing I've heard in a coon's age. Yes, indeed, I'll be there on time. Well, thank you ever so much. Good-bye!"
"What is it?" his wife asked with eager interest as he dropped down in his chair with face alight.
"Well, isn't that fine of the old chap? Wilmer's been trying to get me in touch with him. Mr. Dorimon's invited me out to Boggybrae, with Wilmer. I've always wanted to try that course, but it's so far out I've never had the chance. He says he'll take me up in the machine."
"I thought you just said you'd given up golf for this season."
"Well, Winifred! I didn't mean I'd give up an invitation like that, did I? Use sense."
"When is it to be?"
"To-morrow afternoon."
Winifred stared. "Why, that's the afternoon of the directors' meeting. You can't go, Leslie."
"Oh, I wouldn't let a little thing like that interfere."
"Leslie! 'A little thing like that'—when I want that ten dollars so much!"
"That's so!" He looked at her with almost comical ruefulness. "Well, what do you think of that? You see, except for the money, there isn't the slightest use in my going to that meeting, dear." He softened his rising voice to gentleness. "Nichols controls the board; he knows the whole business; we do just as he says, and there'll be a quorum without me, anyway. If I could only give you that ten dollars out of hand"
"You know I wouldn't take it."
"Why do you have to get the rug just now, anyway?"
"Why do I have to get it? Because this is so worn and ragged that it's perfectly disgusting. I can't have a soul come to the house while it's down; I have to put a chair over there to cover the hole. I only asked the Red Cross to meet here on Friday because I felt so sure of having it, and now Oh, Leslie, if you knew how I hated to hear you talk that way! It makes me feel that I haven't done my duty at all. It isn't only the money—it's the point of view. I do think that when a man accepts responsibilities he ought to live up to them; it just undermines his whole character if he doesn't! You say there is no need for you to go to such an important thing as a directors' meeting. Well, there ought to be a need, there ought"
"Oh, well" He looked at her absently, as if he were pondering, but still absurdly crestfallen. "Don't say any more; I'll go, of course. I wouldn't make you pay up for it."
"But, Leslie, that isn't the way to think of it!" Womanlike, however, having gained her point, she began to yearn futilely over him. "You couldn't do both, I suppose?"
"I should say not. The meeting is at three."
"I wish you could play your old golf! Leslie, it really makes me miserable to have you give it up, but you know yourself it's your duty to go to the meeting. And if I don't get that rug now—though that isn't the point"
"All right, all right; the subject is closed," said Leslie, in that tone of his that did close the subject. "I'll call up Mr. Dorimon now and tell him I can't come."
"What did he say?" she couldn't help asking as Leslie came back from the 'phone.
"I couldn't get him; he's gone out for the evening. I'll call him up from town the first thing in the morning," he answered shortly, burying himself gloomily afterward in a book for the rest of the evening.
But later that quality of real kindness and sweetness in him, which scrupulously considered her rights and her happiness, asserted itself; in closing up the house for the night he moved the chair, as if by accident, that covered the big hole in the shabby rug, and said, as he kicked it carelessly with his foot:
"Well, the little girl is going to have her new rug this week, anyway."
"Yes," returned Winifred, with an unexpected recurrence of that odd sensation that she was saying what was not true.
II
The next day was the most beautiful softly golden one of a softly golden autumn; just the day for golf. Winifred couldn't help hoping that it might rain by afternoon so that Leslie wouldn't have had to give up so much after all. But she couldn't keep from saying to him that morning as he went out through the screen door: "You won't forget to call up Mr. Dorimon?" and he answered, "No; I won't forget, Winifred."
The day seemed rather a long one to her. Mrs. Roberts, over the telephone, embedded in a lava-flow of elegant language the thrilling fact that green peppers could actually be bought two for six cents—cheaper even than in the market!—at a mysteriously distant spot where an Italian family sold vegetables in the home. The fact somehow didn't appeal appetizingly. Mrs. Wilmer called up to say that she and her husband were going away on the morrow for a few days, and how pleased Jack had been that i Leslie had the invitation to Boggybrae. She had to leave the 'phone suddenly, and Winifred couldn't explain.
And as the swing of life went, Mrs. Chandor called up to impart, in an awed voice, the word just received that the fair-haired young Englishman who was in her husband's office before the war had been killed in action. Winifred hadn't known him, but somehow the news seemed to set one almost in the dread current of battle: with the pity for those who were bereaved, it made you feel as if you ought to love those near you more than ever. She almost wished she had let Leslie go to his golf, if it were not for the more serious issue involved.
Just after luncheon, however, little Brunhilda Fremer, red-cheeked and glowing, ran in on her way home from the tram for a book, and incidentally to show her engagement ring, a large diamond sunk in a platinum band instead of the traditional gold; the metal might be an innovation to Winifred's sentiment, but the look in Brunhilda's brown eyes as she regarded it held all the tradition of the engaged.
"I think it's awfully good," she asserted raptly.
"Was it Mr. Phillips's choice?"
"He hasn't seen it yet," said the bride-elect, still engrossed by the view of her uplifted hand.
"Not seen it yet!"
Brunhilda laughed. "That's exactly the way Aunt Julia spoke; she's so romantic! No, I didn't want him along; he is so inartistic. Three of the girls from the Art School went with me to choose it—all he wanted was for me to be suited—and we had the loveliest time! I telephoned him after I'd picked it out. Really, you know I didn't approve of spending so much money on an engagement ring. I could have had all the newest plumbing put in the studio for half the price, and Mother thought I was very foolish not to; but Kelvey preferred the ring."
"Well, I should think so," said Winifred frankly.
"I insisted on his bringing up his law books to the studio and teaching me in the evenings," continued Brunhilda. "Mother thinks it is so necessary for a woman to help her husband in his work; he needs her intuition, of course, but he needs her knowledge, too."
"I should think it would be almost too much for you, studying law after working as hard as you do all day at your decorating."
"Oh, I don't mind that. Of course we haven't done much reading yet. I say to him every night, 'Kelvey, we really must get down to work!' but there have been so many things to talk about—the furnishings and all that, and lately"—a sudden vivid blush overspread Brunhilda's small round face—"Kelvey is so foolish sometimes," she murmured.
"Of course he is," said Winifred warmly, yet with a feeling that in spite of the girl's theories her Kelvey seemed to be getting his own way most of the time.
"But I must go. I hope I'm not keeping you from Mr. Iverson," said Brunhilda, jumping up.
"Why, Leslie isn't home at this time of day."
"Oh! I thought I saw him on the train I came out in," said Brunhilda, staring.
"You couldn't have! He has an engagement in town at three this afternoon."
"I must have been mistaken then; still—Good-bye!" She seemed suddenly to melt warmly into Winifred's embrace, velvet coat, feathered hat, and all, with something indescribably whole-hearted and confiding in the action. Winifred didn't wonder at Kelvey Phillips's disinclination for spending all his evenings in the study of law.
But why had Brunhilda imagined that she saw Leslie? If he had broken his word and gone to play golf he would have ridden from town in Mr. Dorimon's motor; reason it out any way you would, he couldn't have been where Brunhilda thought she saw him. Once she had herself come face to face in town with the husband of an acquaintance after having just been told that he had gone to another city—it had given her a queer sensation that she had never forgotten. Did men do such things—things they didn't tell their wives?
Leslie was unusually late for dinner; she had almost given him up, when he came in vigorously, tall and fair-haired; his sunny presence seemed to fill the little house.
He kissed his wife with unusual tenderness, smiling down into the dark eyes raised with unconscious questioning to his, and afterward put his hand in one pocket and then in the other, pretending exaggerated surprise and drawing it out empty.
"I hope I haven't lost it! Too bad—you'll have to go without that rug after all. Steady now—steady Ah, here's the precious ten-dollar gold piece."
Winifred pounced on it, laughing.
"You do behave like such a goose, Leslie. But I'm very glad to have it; I kept fancying that something would interfere." She held him off suddenly at arm's length, voicing a half-suspicion: "You didn't take it from the reserve fund?" The small reserve fund in the bank was sacred, to be taken only in emergency with consent of both.
The corners of his mouth set in a straight line. "No, ma'am, I did not. Isn't this money good enough for you?"
"Leslie, don't, dear; I only thought the meeting might have been postponed."
"Well, it wasn't."
His sunniness shone forth again, yet with a certain anxious earnestness below it. "Now be sure and get that rug to-morrow; that's all I ask. If you don't I'll borrow the money from you."
"Oh, I'll get it," said Winifred gaily.
Yet, after all, she didn't go into town on the morrow; little Matilda had a slight cold. Something each day seemed to prevent. That special tenderness which she had noted on Leslie's part still continued: he brought her a bunch of carnations the next night, which, though somewhat wilted—having been bought "off a boy" in the street—were still floral tokens of affection; he took off the screen doors without being reminded again; he spent all one evening putting washers on the leaking faucets; and he agreed, with only faint demur, to take that unholy walk to the Fremers' on the farthest borders of the town, in acceptance of the invitation to "meet" Brunhilda's young man.
Leslie's behaviour, indeed, was such as to have made a wife with more experience ponder somewhat on its cause. But he also asked every day with unusual interest when the Wilmers would be back, and if she had bought the rug; wanting persistently to know why she hadn't, and urging her to action.
After the fashion of womankind, Winifred, who, while waiting for the price of the rug, felt that she could barely eat or sleep until it was on the floor, couldn't seem to find exactly the right time now to go into town. She calmly let the Red Cross Society meet at her house and work with their feet on the old rug, ragged as it was; she felt so differently about it when everyone knew she was expecting to buy a better one.
"I really am going in for it to-morrow," she said that evening in answer to her husband's reiterated question, before starting out for the Fremers'.
"Yes, I would if I were you; if you wait too long I may pitch this out," he warned her. "Here's an extra dollar for you—you may need a little more leeway in carfare or lunch, or something."
"How is business now?" she hazarded. That line in his forehead had smoothed out somewhat.
He looked at her thoughtfully. "It seems to be a little better—Heaven knows it needed to be! We've had a big order lately." He stopped short. "The Wilmers won't be at the Fremers', you say?"
"They don't get back until to-morrow."
"Well, you get that rug. Perhaps we'd better take a cab after all over to the Fremers'; it's a pretty long distance for you—I tell you we feel it now Father's away with the car."
"No, we'll walk," said Winifred stoutly.
III
Everyone was already at the Fremers' when they arrived; people standing in small groups and talking perfunctorily. The house had a distinctly depressing effect on "company," Brunhilda and Ermentrude having decorated it in accordance with the newest ideas. The drawing rooms—hung in gray and black with immense bronze lamps that sent out about a needleful of light, and a few gleaming legs of chairs and tables showing in the distance—gave an impression of bareness, as of not yet being ready for occupancy.
It was reported, by those who had slept there overnight in the winter-time, that there were never enough covers. The fact seemed somehow indicative.
There was an exception, however, in "Grandma's" room, to which certain favoured guests were conducted on arrival; a cheerful, brilliantly lighted spot of warm red curtains, and sagging, cushioned rockers, and piles of old magazines, and flowered work bags, and crocheted shawls with lavender borders. Wrapped in one of the latter in the midst of these evidences of living, Grandma held court, apologizing scrupulously for not rising on account of her foot.
"I am always glad to see you, my dear," she said to Winifred, who stood before her, radiant in a pretty white evening gown, "and your husband, too." She lowered her voice to a mysterious whisper: "What do you think of my granddaughter's young man?"
"We've not met him yet," said Winifred.
"Oh! Bend lower, my dear. She thinks she's going to twist him around her little finger, but I could tell her a thing worth two of that. He's a rascal like your husband here—he's a rascal! He'll get his own way every time if he wants to. Ah, I know you!" She shook her finger delightedly, at Leslie.
"Now, Mrs. Whiting, you know you love me," said Leslie laughingly, making way for the next batch of visitors.
"Let's go home now, Win," he murmured, suddenly balking at the door.
"No, we can't go yet," she murmured back, as they descended into the aesthetic gloom of the state caverns, in which the little Brunhilda was now circling around like a small red robin, though she wore a silver fillet on her dark hair, and a classic yellow robe that showed not only her lovely bare white neck and arms, but also her lovely sandaled little bare white feet.
Leslie and Winifred halted by a group of friends: the Chandors and Bannards and Silvertons; the purple-velveted Mrs. Roberts, who was always afraid of losing some pearl of converse, eagerly detaching herself from uninteresting strangers to join the others, as Brunhilda came across the room to them with her young man following a half step behind, and her head leaning back over her shoulder as she spoke to him. There was, however, nothing of the laggard in his mien or expression, which seemed to show an amused aloofness from his surroundings, though his smiling eyes, bent on the upturned ones of Brunhilda, were full of a gleaming, guarded tenderness of ardour that capably bided its time.
Winifred, turning to see how Leslie was regarding them, gazed at him in wonderment. He certainly had a very queer expression, at once surprised, and shamefaced, and uneasy; for a moment he seemed about to start away and go, and then stood his ground as Brunhilda came up.
"This is Mr. Phillips, Mrs. Iverson—I think he's met all the others. Oh, and Mr. Iverson!"
"Well, we certainly have met before, haven't we?" said Mr. Phillips, shaking Leslie's hand warmly.
"Why, do you know, I thought your name was Hillis," said Leslie, with what seemed somewhat forced heartiness.
"No; Phillips. Mr. Dorimon speaks rather indistinctly sometimes. I met your husband at Boggybrae, Mrs. Iverson, last Wednesday. We had a fine time."
"It couldn't have been Wednesday, for that was the day I persuaded him to go to a directors' meeting, and he brought me home his ten-dollar gold piece," said Winifred guilelessly—and could have bitten out her tongue the next instant.
"It was—ah, Thursday, of course," said Mr. Phillips unwinkingly. "Your husband plays a great game, Mrs. Iverson, a great game!"
The Iversons walked part of the distance home with the Bannards; the rest of the way they were perfectly silent. The stars had come out and the weather had turned colder; their hurrying feet echoed along the frosty pavement with a lonely sound as if it were very late in the night; the key rang in the lock.
Winifred went upstairs at once. When Leslie entered the room a few minutes later, stepping more heavily than was his wont, she came swiftly toward him.
"There," she said, in a breathless voice, holding out the gold piece at arm's length.
He made a quick gesture of repudiation. "I don't want it!"
"Well, I'm sure I don't!" She threw it down on the table. "I wouldn't touch it now for anything on earth!" Her dark eyes blazed at him, her cheeks burned. Her voice rose: "I would go without a rug forever before I'd buy one with the price of—lies; yes, lies! When you were planning to deceive me, just for a miserable game of golf. And you were at Boggybrae all the time! I can never forget it, I can never forget that you lied to me. I can never"
"Stop!" said her husband, in a curiously level tone that yet seemed to carry a controlling force with it. "Stop right now, before you say anything more you'll be sorry for. Sit down in that chair."
His hand gently but firmly pushed her into it, with her head resting against the back. After a moment or two her whole body seemed to relax; the tears began to well up in her eyes and stream down her cheeks. She groped blindly for her handkerchief.
He stooped over and picked it up off the floor. "Here it is." He thrust it into her fingers, and then sat down beside her, clasping her other hand in his.
"Now, don't get to crying," he warned her. "You know it will only make you ill to-morrow. There, that's better. Now I want you to listen to me. I ought to have told you before, but I knew you'd cut up about the rug—though there's no need to—and I wanted to wait until you'd sure-enough bought it. I didn't lie to you, but I let you think what wasn't so—and I shouldn't have, that's true enough."
A shudder went through her, but a pressure of his hand warned her to control.
"Want to hear the rest? Well, be quiet then. I was so busy Wednesday when I got into town that I hadn't a minute to call up Mr. Dorimon until late in the morning, and then I found that he'd left the office, and they didn't know when he'd be back. And just after that Jackson came in and paid me twenty-five dollars I lent him before I was married, and never expected to see again. So I thought it was no harm to take your ten out of that. I caught the train out here to get my clubs and chased back again to meet the motor."
"Then Brunhilda did see you!"
"Yes. I did want you to get that rug, Win, before I told you! As far as the directors' meeting was concerned I was only too glad not to have to go to it, as things went. I knew all the time it was really better for me to stay away; you wouldn't understand, dear, if I explained; there's too much back of it. You see, you may be all right in theory, Win, but when it comes to managing my own affairs I've got to be the judge. And that couple of hours with Mr. Dorimon did more for me than I could ever have got without it; I'd been trying before to get him to order from us, and Wilmer fixed up this chance for me—I swear I'll never forget it! I've been carrying more lately than I let on to you. Feel better now, dear? I'm going to turn that other fifteen over to you, so that you can buy a hat or—well, I mean something that you need."
"Oh, Leslie, you think me so foolish!" Winifred's words came muffled from his shoulder, where his hand was smoothing her dark hair.
"You bet I don't! I don't think you're foolish at all. You're my sweet wife. Now don't begin to cry again, dear." He lifted her head so that her eyes faced his. "You help me in a hundred ways I don't tell you of; perhaps I ought to, but I can't seem to. Why, some days in the office when I think of you and little Matilda waiting home here for me and how fine and good and true you are, dear, and how much you believe in me, I get all soft; I feel as if I couldn't work hard enough for you. I just feel as if I had a lot to live up to."
"Oh, Leslie!" Winifred clung to his hand with his eyes still plunged into the upturned ones. She sighed, with, however, a little note of comfort in the sigh.
"As if I didn't know I had a lot to live up to, too, dearest—with you!" she protested with sudden, sweet fierceness. "Nothing can ever come between us, can it, even when I'm horrid. Yes, I was horrid, and you know it No; don't speak; I was! That old Mrs. Fremer—she makes me so cross; but then, poor thing, we all know what her husband is. Perhaps it's no wonder she thinks the wife and mother has to be everything!"
"Well, she's a pretty good deal," said Leslie soberly.