house should be private, that he should be able to be alone when he wished, and particularly that he should be able to keep his moods from her as much as possible.
The changes were inexpensively made. Across the hall from the study were two rooms, one of which had been occupied by Dane as an indoor bedroom and the other by the boys. This space was now given over to Valerie, and an extension was added at the rear of the house giving the boys a large and sunny room off the kitchen, and Dane himself a bedroom and a small study where he could write at night when Valerie wished to play the piano. This latter room opened directly into his den. This arrangement put Valerie on one side of the hall and him on the other, with common ground in the front study, and in the bathroom which was on her side next the kitchen. It was understood they would not invade each other’s privacy without invitation.
Valerie had her section of the verandah, too, that outside her own rooms, fitted up with a sleeping-cot and a table and chairs.
As there was no dining-room, lunch, always a tray affair, was to be served as he or she might fancy. The location of dinner had the same pleasant uncertainty. In some moods Dane liked it served ceremoniously in his den, in others he liked it in the study. More often, and when it was fine, he liked it out-of-doors.
She had seen at once that she must take no part in the running of the house. Beyond making her own bed, dusting her own things, keeping her own writing-table tidy, and arranging with the boys to take her laundry in and out of Dargaville, there was nothing for her to do. It seemed that never in her wildest dreams could she have hoped for a more harmonious atmosphere in which to try to write.
