Chapter III: Part 3

"Hallo, there," cried Wayne Carey's voice from the door. "You're having more fun out here than we are in there, and that's not fair. The lord of the manor is getting so chesty over the delights of a country home in a February snowbank that he's becoming heavy company."

"No room for you here," returned the doctor, removing with a flourish the last candied sugar lump from the bottom of the big dish, and beginning to swash about vigorously in the hot water. "We do something besides talk out here; we work. Our kitchen is so small we have to waste no time in steps; as we dry the things we chuck them straight into their places."

Suiting the action to the word he caught up a shining cake-tin and cast it straight at Carey. That gentleman dodged, but Anthony caught it, performed upon it an imitation of the cymbals, then turned about and laid it in a nest of similar tins upon a shelf in an open closet.

"Ah, but I'm well trained," he boasted.

"If you were you wouldn't put it away wet," observed Rachel slyly.

Anthony withdrew the tin, wiped it with much solicitude, and replaced it.

"These little technicalities are beyond me," he apologised. "Your real athlete in kitchen work is your scientific man. See him dry that bean-pot with the glass-towel. Now, I know better than that."

"Go away, all of you," commanded the mistress of the place. "Go back to the fire and we'll join you. If you are very good we'll bring you a special treat by-and-by."

"That settles it," said the doctor, and led the retreat, but not without a backward glance at the little kitchen.

Juliet had gone into the dining-room with a trayful of glass and silver. Rachel Redding was plunging half a dozen white towels into a pan of steaming water. Barnes stood an instant, staring hard at the slender figure in the white pinafore, the round young arms gleaming in the lamplight--then he turned to follow the others. There are some pictures which linger long in a man's memory; why, he can hardly tell. With all his varied experiences Dr. Roger Barnes had never before discovered how attractive a background a well-kept kitchen makes for a beautiful woman, so that she be there mistress of the situation. Long after he had gone back to the fire his absent eyes, while the others talked, were studying the--to him--unaccustomed and singularly charming scene he had just left in the kitchen.

When Juliet and Rachel came in at length they found a plan afoot for their entertainment. Wayne Carey was standing at the window showing cause why the whole party should go out and coast upon the hill near by.

"You admit," he argued with Anthony, "that you know where we can get a pair of bobs--and if you can't I'll bribe some of those youngsters out there to let us have theirs. The storm has stopped; the boys have swept off the whole hill, I should judge, by the way their track shines again under the moonlight. I haven't had a good coast since I left college."

He turned to Juliet. "Will you go?" he asked coaxingly.

"Of course we will," promised Juliet. "Tony wants to go--he's just enjoying making you tease. As for the doctor----"

"If my right hand has not forgot her cunning," he agreed.

In ten minutes the party was off. A young matron of five months' standing is not so materially changed from the girl she used to be that she can fail to be the gayest of company, perhaps with the more zest that the old good times seem a bit far away already and she is glad to bring them back.

As for the real girl of the party, in this case it chanced to be a country lass who had been away to school and half-way through college, had been brought home by love and duty to some elderly people who needed her, and had known many hours of stifled longing for the sort of companionship with which she had grown happily familiar.

Matron and maid--they were a pair for whose sakes the men who were with them gladly made slaves of themselves to give them an evening of glorious outdoor fun--and at small sacrifice.

* * * * *

"What a night!" exulted the doctor, striding up the long hill beside Rachel Redding breathing deep. "I'm thanking all my lucky stars that they led my path across Anthony Robeson's to-night. I've been intending to come out here ever since he was married--and might not have done it for another six months if I hadn't got started. He'll have all he wants of me now. It's the most delightful spot I've been in for many moons."

"It is a dear little home," agreed Rachel warmly. "Mrs. Robeson would make the most commonplace house in the world one where everybody would want to come."

"That's evident. Yet, somehow, knowing her well as a girl, I never should have suspected just those home-making qualities. You didn't know her then, I suppose? She was a girl other girls liked heartily, and men enthusiastically--one of the 'I'll be a good friend, but don't come too near' sort, you know. But she was very fond of travel and change, ready for everything in the way of sport--and, well, I certainly never saw her before in anything resembling an apron of any description. What a delightful article of attire an apron is, anyhow. I think I never appreciated it before to-night."

"That's because you never saw one of Mrs. Robeson's aprons. Hers are not like other people's."

"She makes hers poetic, does she?"

"She certainly does--even the ones for baking and sweeping. Not ruffled or beribboned, but cut with an eye to attractiveness, and always of becoming colour."

"I see. She's an artist--that was noticeable in the oysters--if she made the dish."

"Of course she did."

"The coffee was the best I ever drank."

"Was it?"

"You made that, then," remarked the doctor astutely.

"I'm glad it was good," said Rachel demurely.

They had reached the top of the hill. Doctor Barnes insisted that Anthony had been the best steerer of coasting parties known to the juvenile world, and placed him at the helm. Next came Juliet, with both arms clasped as far about her husband's stalwart frame as they would go. Carey had wanted to be the end man, but Doctor Barnes would have none of it. "You have to take care of Mrs. Robeson," he said firmly, and placed him next. This brought Miss Redding last, and Dr. Roger Barnes, knowing man, as hanger-on behind upon bobs already fairly full. The last man, as every coaster understands, has to be alert to help out any possible bad steering, and so keeps a watchful head thrust half over the shoulder in front.

The foregoing explanation will show how it came about that all down the long, swift descent, Rachel, breathless with the unaccustomed delight of the flight, felt upon her cheek a warm breath, and was conscious of a most extraordinary nearness of the lips which kept saying merry things into her ear. The ear itself grew warm before the bottom of the track was reached.

"That was a great coast," cried the doctor as they reached the end of the long slide. "Now for another. I'm a boy again. This beats the best thing I could have had in town if I hadn't run across Anthony."

So they had another--and another--and one more. Then Rachel Redding, stopping in front of a small house which lay at the foot of the hill, said good-night to them and slipped away before Barnes had realised what had happened.

* * * * *

"Does she live there?" he questioned Juliet, as the four who were left moved on toward home. Anthony and Wayne were discussing a subject on which they had differed at the top of the hill. "Somehow, I got the impression she lived with you."

"No--but she comes over a good deal. I couldn't get on without her."

"As a friend?"

Juliet looked up at him. "I think it would be better that you should know, Roger," she said, "and I'm sure Miss Redding herself would prefer it--that I pay her for several hours a day of regular work. You've only to see her to understand that she does this simply because it's the only thing open to her as long as her father and mother can't spare her to go away. She gave up her college course in the middle because she said they were pining to death for her. They are in very greatly reduced circumstances, after a lifetime of prosperity. She's a rare creature--I'm learning to appreciate her more every day. She's never said a word about her loneliness here, but it shows in her eyes. It's a perfect delight to me to have her with me, and I mean to give her all the fun I can. For all that demure manner and her Madonna face she's as full of mischief as a kitten when something starts her off."

"Juliet," said the doctor soberly, turning to look searchingly down at her in the moonlight, "would you be willing to let me come often?"

Juliet looked up quickly. "So that you may see her?" she asked straightforwardly.

"Yes. I won't pretend it's anything else. I can tell you honestly that if there were no other reason I should want to come because of my old friendship for you and Anthony, and because this evening in your little home has given me a rare pleasure. I know of no place like it. But I'll tell you squarely that I want the chance to meet your friend often and at once. If I don't you will have other people coming out from town----"

"Yes," said Juliet, and something in the way she said it made him ask quickly: "Has that already happened? Am I too late?"

"I don't know whether you're too late, but I know that we've suddenly grown most attractive to another man from town. If you had gone into Rachel's home the odour of violets would have met you at the door. He sends them every few days."

"_Ah!_" said the doctor. It was not much of a comment, but it spoke volumes. He had been keen before--he was determined now. Violets--well, there were rarer flowers than those.

XIII.--SMOKE AND TALK

At the house there remained for the guests an hour before the fire, where Juliet brought in something hot and sweet and sour and spicy, which tasted delicious and brought her a shower of compliments while they drank a friendly draught to her. When she had left them, standing in an admiring group on the hearth-rug and wishing her happy dreams, they settled into luxurious positions of ease before the fire--a fire in the last stages of red comfort before it dies into a smoulder of torrid ashes.

"Anthony Robeson," said Wayne Carey, regarding the andirons fixedly over his bed-time pipe, "you're a happy man."

Anthony laughed contentedly. He had thrown himself down upon the hearth-rug with his head on a pillow pulled from the settle, and lay flat on his back with his hands clasped behind his neck. It was an attitude deeply expressive of masculine comfort.

"You're exactly right," said he. "And you would be the same if you would give up living in that infernal boarding-house. What do you want to fool with your first year of married life like that for? You told me that Judith was bowled over by our wedding, and was ready to go in for this sort of thing with a will."

"I know it," admitted Carey, "but"--he spoke hesitatingly--"we couldn't seem to find this sort of thing. You had corralled all there was."

"Nonsense."

"You had. Everything we looked at was so old and mouldy, or so new and inartistic, or so high-priced, or so far away--well, we couldn't seem to get at it, so we said we'd board a while and wait until we could look around."

"How does it work?"

"Why, I suppose it works very well," said Carey cautiously. "Judith seems contented. We have as good meals as the average in such houses, and the people are rather a nice lot. We're invited around quite a good deal, and Judith likes that. I ought to like it better than I do, somehow. I'm so confoundedly tired when I get home nights I can't help thinking of you and Juliet here in this jolly room. There's an abominable blue and yellow wall-paper on our sitting-room--and it has a way of appearing to turn seasick in the evening under the electrics. Sometimes I think it's that that makes me feel----"

"Seasick, too?" inquired the doctor with his professional air. He was standing with his arm on the chimney-piece, looking alternately down on his friends and around the long, low room. It _was_ a jolly room--the very essence of comfort and cosiness. It was a beautiful room, too, in a simple way; one which satisfied his sense of harmony in colours and fabrics--a keen sense with him, as it is apt to be with men of his profession.

"Judith likes this, too, you know," Carey went on loyally. "She thinks it's great. But how to get it for ourselves--that's another matter. Somehow, you were lucky."

"Did you ever happen to see," asked Anthony, "a photograph I took, just for fun, of this house as it was when Juliet saw it first? No? Well, just look in that box on the end of the farther bookcase, will you? It's near the top--there--that's it."

He lay looking up through half-closed lashes at the two men as they studied the photograph, the doctor leaning over Carey's shoulder.

"On your word, man, did it look like that?" cried Barnes.

"Just like that."

"Yes, I've heard it did," admitted Carey; "but I never quite believed it could have been as bad as that."

"Who planned it all?" the doctor asked, getting possession of the photograph as Carey laid it down, and giving it careful scrutiny.

"My little home-maker."

"Jove--are there any more like her?"

"They're pretty rare, I understand. Juliet has one in training--one with a good deal of native capacity, I should judge."

"Let me know when her graduation day approaches," remarked the doctor.

* * * * *

When he fell asleep that night in the dainty guest-room Barnes was wondering whether Mrs. Robeson got her own breakfasts, and hoping that she certainly did not, at least when guests were in the house. He was down half an hour earlier than necessary, and to his great satisfaction found a slender figure brushing up ashes and setting the fireplace in order for the morning fire. As he begged leave to help he noted the satin smoothness of Miss Redding's heavy black hair and the trim perfection of her attire. She reminded him of his hospital nurses in their immaculate blue and white. When he saw the mistress of the house and found her similarly dressed a certain skepticism grew in his mind.

When he went out to breakfast he murmured in Anthony's ear: "Just tell me, old fellow--to satisfy the curiosity of a bachelor--do these girls of your household always look like this in the early morning? I know it's mean--but you will know how to evade me if I'm too impertinent----"

Anthony glanced from Juliet, resembling a pink carnation in her wash frock--February though it was--to Rachel Redding in dark blue and white, and smiled mischievously. "Mrs. Robeson--and Miss Redding--you are challenged," he announced. "Here's a fine old chump who has an awful suspicion that maybe when there are no guests you come down in calico wrappers with day-before-yesterday's aprons on."

Juliet gave the doctor a glance which made him pretend to shrink behind Carey for protection. "Will you please answer him, Tony?" she said.

"On my word and honour, Roger Barnes, then," said Anthony proudly, "they always look like this."

When the doctor left he was weighing carefully in his mind an urgent problem: After waiting six months before making his first visit at the Robesons, how soon could he decently come again?

XIV.--STRAWBERRIES

"Here are yer strawberries, ma'm."

Juliet, alone in her little kitchen, ran to the door in dismay. She looked down at a freckle-faced boy carrying a big basket filled with strawberry-boxes.

"But my order was for next Wednesday," she said.

"Well, Pa said he cal'lated you'd ruther have 'em when they was at the best, an' that's now. This hot weather's a dryin' 'em up. May not be any good ones by Wednesday."

Every housekeeper knows that if there is one thing particularly liable to happen it is the arrival of fruit for preserving at the most inopportune moment of the week. It matters little what the excuse of the sender may be--there is always a sufficient reason why the original date set by the buyer has been ignored. In this case the strawberries had been engaged from a neighbour, and Juliet understood at once that she must not refuse to take them.

She stood looking at the rows of baskets upon the table, when the boy had placed them there and gone whistling away. She was in the midst of a flurry of work. It was Saturday, and she was cooking and baking, putting together various dishes to be used upon the morrow. Mr. Horatio Marcy had lately returned from abroad. He and Mrs. Dingley were to spend the coming Sabbath with Juliet and Anthony--the first occasion on which Juliet's father should be entertained in the house. It was an event of importance, and his daughter meant to show him several things concerning her fitness for her present position.

Rachel Redding was not available upon this Saturday morning. Her mother had been taken seriously ill the night before, and Rachel had sent word that she could not leave her. Juliet had not minded much, although it was a day when Rachel's help would have been especially acceptable. As it was, she had reached a point where her housewifely marshalling of the day's work was at a critical stage. A cake had been put into the oven. A large bowl of soup stock had been brought from a cool retreat to have the smooth coating of fat removed from its surface. Various other dishes, in process of construction, awaited the skilled touch of the cook.

"I shall have to do them, I suppose," said Mrs. Robeson to herself, regarding the strawberries with a disapproving eye. "But _why_ they had to come to-day----"

She went at the strawberries, wishing she had ordered less. They were fine berries--on top; by degrees, as the boxes lowered, they became less fine. It seemed desirable to separate the superior from the inferior and treat them differently. Only the best would do for the delectable preserve which was to go into glasses and be served on special occasions; the others could be made into jam less attractive to the eye if hardly less acceptable to the palate. Juliet was obliged to put down her berry-boxes every fifth minute to attend to one or other of the various saucepans and double-boilers upon the little range. Her cheeks grew flushed, for the day was hot and the kitchen hotter. It must be admitted that her occasional glance out over the green fields and the woods beyond was a longing one.

The better selection of the berries went into the clear syrup in the preserving-kettle. Juliet flew to get her glass pots ready. She stopped to stir something in a saucepan. She thrust some eggs into the small ice-chest to cool them for the salad dressing soon to be made. She kept one eye on the clock, for the strawberry preserve had to be timed to a minute--ten, no more, no less. It was a strenuous hour.

As she dipped up the fourth ladleful of crimson richness--translucent as a church window--and filled the waiting jar, a peculiar pungent odour drifted across the fragrance of the strawberries. Juliet dropped her ladle and pulled open the oven door.

The delicate cake which she had compounded with especial care because it was Mrs. Dingley's favourite, lay a blackened ruin. Some of it had run over upon the oven bottom and become a mass of cinders. Juliet jerked the cake-tin out into the daylight and shut the oven door with a slam.

It was at this unpropitious moment that a figure appeared in the doorway--a tall, slim figure, in crisp, cool, white linen. A charming white hat surmounted Mrs. Wayne Carey's carefully ordered hair, a white parasol in her hands completed a particularly chaste and appropriate morning toilette for a young woman who had nothing to do with kitchens.

She was regarding with interest the young person at the range. Juliet wore one of her characteristic working frocks, and the big pinafore which enveloped it from head to foot was of an attractive design. But the morning's flurry had set its signs upon her, and the pinafore was not as immaculate as it had been three hours earlier. Her hair, curling moistly about her flushed face, had been impatiently pushed back more than once, and its disorder, while not unpicturesque, was suggestive of a somewhat perturbed mind. Her hands were pink with strawberry juice. She looked warm, tired, and--if the truth must be told--at the moment not a little out of temper. The smile with which she welcomed her friend could hardly be said to be one of absolute pleasure.

"I'm afraid I've come at the wrong time," said Judith, regretfully. "Did you just burn something? Too bad. I suppose all young housekeepers do that. Where's your--assistant?"

"She's not here to-day," said Juliet, ladling up strawberry preserve with more haste than caution. Her fingers shook a little but she kept her voice tranquil. "It's all right. A number of things had to be done at once, that's all. Please don't stay in this hot place. Take off your hat and find a cool corner somewhere in the house. I'll be in presently."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Then don't expect the results."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XV.--ANTHONY PLAYS MAID

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Nonsense, Tony. Shall we go?"

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

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

"To be sure. Here goes, then."

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

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

"All right. Where do I begin?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You've missed a hook."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Juliet laughed again. Anthony tugged.

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

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

"Can you breathe?" he asked solicitously.

"Of course I can."

"What with?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It must be," he said solemnly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, I do," she agreed frankly.

"Let's not!"

"My dear boy! At this hour?"

"We could telephone."

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

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

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

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

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

"By all means."

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

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

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

XVI.--A HOUSE-PARTY--OUTDOORS

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

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

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

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

"Good. I hope it's a duel between the two principals. If it is I'm going to tamper with the weapons and see that each injures himself past help. I'm getting a little weary of playing the hospitable host to a trio of would-bes."

"Listen. We'll entertain them all at once for a week, with some extra girls, and Judith and Wayne, and then we'll announce that we're not at home for a month."

"All at once--a house-party?" Anthony sat up and laughed uproariously. "I've tremendous faith in you, love, but where in the name of all the French sardines that ever were dovetailed would you put such a crowd?"

"I've a practical plan. Louis Lockwood belongs to a fishing club that spends every August up in Canada. They have a big tent, twenty by twenty-five, for he told me so the other day. He would get it for us; we would put it out in the orchard, close to the river. You and Wayne, and Roger and Louis, and Stevens Cathcart could sleep down there, and I could easily take care of Judith and Suzanne Gerard and Marie Dresser, here in the house. Rachel should stay here, too. And Auntie Dingley would send down Mary McKaim to cook for us, I'm sure."

"That's not so bad. But why Rachel--when you have so little room?"

"Because I want her to have all the fun; because if I don't keep her here she will be running away half the time; and because----"

"Now comes the real reason," observed Anthony sagely.

"I don't want the other girls thinking she has the unfair advantage of taking a man away from the party every evening to walk down home with her."

"Wise little chaperon. I can see Roger and Louis now, glaring at each other as the hour approaches for her departure."

"What do you think of my plan? It's only a plan, you know, Tony--subject to your approval."

"Diplomat!" murmured Anthony, reaching up one arm and drawing it about her shoulders. "You know you're safe to have my approval when you put it in that tone. Well, provided you can figure out the finances--and I know you wouldn't propose it if you hadn't done that already--I don't see any objection. On one condition, though, Julie, mind you--on one condition."

"Name it."

"Of course, I can only be here evenings during your house party. So my condition is that I have you and the home all to myself for my vacation afterward. Not a wooer nor a chum admitted. No overdressed women out from town, taking afternoon tea--no invitations to lonesome husbands out to dinner. Just you and I. Did you ever imagine life in the rural localities would be so gay, anyhow? I want to go fishing with you--tramping through the woods with you--sitting out here on the porch with you--in short, have you all to myself--and"--he turned completely about, kneeling below her on the step, crushing her in both arms so vigorously that he stopped her breath--"eat--you--up!"

"What a prospect," she cried softly, when she found herself partially released. "Are you sure you need a vacation, just for that?"

"Certain of it. I've had to share you with other people all the year--and now I've got to give you up to a jealous lovers' assemblage. So after that, mind you, I have my satisfaction."

* * * * *

When Doctor Barnes was told of the plan he looked gloomy. "Going to ask Lockwood?" he inquired at once.

"Of course," assented Juliet promptly.

"I don't see any 'of course' about it."

"What would Marie Dresser do to me if I didn't invite him?"

"He doesn't care for her----"

"Oh, yes, he does. Why, last winter he seemed to be on the point of asking her to marry him. Everybody expected the announcement any day."

"Last winter and this summer are two different propositions."

"Marie doesn't think so."

"She'll get mightily undeceived, then. Whom else are you asking?"

"Stevens Cathcart."

The doctor groaned. "Is this a dose you're fixing for me? I'm going to be too busy--I can't come."

"Very well," said Juliet placidly. She was sewing, upon the porch, and the doctor sat on the step.

He looked up with a grimace. "I suppose you think I'll be out on the next train after the rest arrive."

"I certainly do, Dr. Roger Williams Barnes."

"I presume you are inviting Suzanne?" he queried.

"Why not?"

"No reason why not. Cathcart admires her immensely--or did, before he began to cultivate this place."

Juliet laughed. "Suzanne would never forgive you if she heard that."

"By-the-way," said the doctor slowly, "has she ever met--Miss Redding?"

"No."

He meditated for several minutes in silence, while Juliet sewed, glancing from time to time at one of the most attractive masculine profiles with which she was familiar. He was not as handsome a man as Louis Lockwood, but every line of his face stood for strength, not without some pretensions to good looks. He looked up at length and straight at her.

"Would you mind telling me," he began, "just what you intend to effect with this combination? I never gave you credit, you know, Juliet, for wanting to manage Fate, and I don't believe it now."

"No, I don't want to manage Fate," said Juliet, smiling over her work, "but I admit I want two things: I want you to see Rachel Redding beside Suzanne Gerard, and--I want Rachel to see you beside Louis Lockwood and--Suzanne."

"I see," said the doctor grimly. "In other words, you want your protegee to have fair play."

"Just that," Juliet answered, more gravely now. "I think lots of you, Roger, and well of you--you know I do--and yet----"

"And yet----"

"Let me guard my girl. She's not like the others, and you and Louis are making it tremendously hard for her between you."

"You seem to be planning to make it infinitely harder."

Juliet shook her head. "Trust me, Roger, please."

"All right, I will," promised the doctor. "But just assure me that you're on my side."

"I'm on nobody's side," was all the comfort he got.

Juliet's invitations received delighted acceptances, though Wayne Carey and Doctor Barnes would be able to come out only for the nights--in time, however, for late and festive suppers outdoors. The tent in the orchard, with its comfortable bunks, was accepted by all the men with enthusiasm.

"And to satisfy the men is the essential thing, you know, Tony," Juliet had observed sagely when she saw their pleasure in their quarters. "The girls will accept any crowding together if they have a mirror and room to tie a sash in, as long as devoted admirers are not wanting."

The moment Miss Dresser and Miss Gerard saw Miss Rachel Redding--to quote Anthony--the fun began. Mrs. Wayne Carey had already met her, and had been carefully coached by Juliet as to the bearing she must assume toward Juliet's new friend. So when Marie and Suzanne began to inquire of Judith the latter was prepared to answer them.

"She's a beauty in her way, isn't she?" Judith asserted. "Juliet's immensely fond of her, I should judge."

"But who is she?" demanded Suzanne.

"A neighbour, a country girl, a school and college girl, a comparatively poor girl--and a lucky girl, for Juliet likes her."

"Have the men met her before?"

"Goodness, yes. Haven't you heard how they beg invitations home to dinner of Anthony, just to see her?" Judith was enjoying the situation. This statement, however, was no part of Juliet's coaching.

"I didn't see anything particularly attractive about her," said Marie promptly. "She's a demure thing. One wouldn't think she ever lifted those long lashes to look at a man--but that's just the kind. Awfully plainly dressed."

"That's her style," said Suzanne. "These poor, pretty girls are once in a while just clever enough to make capital out of their poverty by wearing simply fetching things in pale gray dimity and dark blue lawn and sunbonnets. Stevens Cathcart would be just the kind to be carried away with her. Roger Barnes wouldn't look at her twice."

"Louis might pretend to admire her, to please Juliet," admitted Marie. "He has a way of making every girl think he is in love with her--and he is, to a certain extent. But it's never serious."

Whether it were serious in this instance Miss Dresser soon had opportunity to judge.

After dinner that first night Anthony proposed taking all his guests out upon the river in a big flat-boat he had rented. But when he made up the party Rachel was not to be found.

"I'm afraid she's gone home," said Juliet.

"I'll run down and see," proposed Lockwood instantly, and was suiting the action to the word when Cathcart got off ahead of him.

"I'll have her back presently," he called as he dashed down the road. "You people go on--we'll catch you."

"We'll wait for you," Lockwood shouted after him.

"Why should we wait?" demurred Marie, beginning to walk away toward the river.

"If we don't he's liable not to find it convenient to catch up with us," Lockwood retorted.

"If they prefer their own company why not let them have it?" she said over her shoulder.

"Run along, Louis," murmured Doctor Barnes. "One girl at a time."

He turned to Juliet. "Shall we go?" he said.

Anthony caught his glance, and, laughing, turned to Suzanne. "Will you console an old married man, Miss Gerard?" he inquired.

But when Cathcart reappeared, which he did very soon, Rachel was not with him. "She said she had to stay with her mother," he explained in a tone which so closely resembled a growl that everybody laughed.

"Bear up, Stevie, boy," chaffed Wayne Carey. "I'm confident she likes you, but she may not like you all the time, you know. They seldom do."

XVII.--RACHEL CAUSES ANXIETY