When they reached the clubhouse Millicent proposed that they go home
for the tea which alone could fittingly conclude the afternoon. The
moment they entered the Harden hall she lifted her arms dramatically.
“Jumbles!” she cried in a mockery of delight. “Mother has been making
jumbles! Come straight to the kitchen!”
In the kitchen they found Mrs. Harden, her ample figure enveloped
in a gingham apron of bright yellow checks that seemed to fill the
immaculate white kitchen with color. Bruce was a little dismayed by his
sudden precipitation into the culinary department of the establishment.
Millicent began piling a plate with warm jumbles; a maid appeared and
began getting the tea things ready. Mrs. Harden, her face aglow from
its recent proximity to the gas range, explained to Bruce that it was
the cook’s afternoon out and at such times she always liked to cook
something just to keep her hand in. She was proud of the kitchen with
its white-tiled walls and flooring and glittering utensils. The library
and the organ belonged to Millie, she said, but Doctor Harden had given
her free swing to satisfy her own craving for an up-to-date kitchen.
Bruce’s heart warmed under these revelations of the domestic sanctuary.
Mrs. Harden’s motherliness seemed to embrace the world and her humor
and sturdy common sense were strongly evident. She regaled Bruce with a
story of a combat she had lately enjoyed with a plumber. She warned him
that if he would succeed as an architect he must be firm with plumbers.
Alone in the living-room with their tea, Millicent and Bruce continued
to find much to discuss. She was gay and serious by turns, made him
talk of himself, and finding that this evidently was distasteful to
him, she led the way back to impersonal things again.
“Why go when there will be dinner here pretty soon?” she asked when he
rose.
“Because I want to come back sometime! I want some more jumbles!
It’s been a great afternoon for me. I do like the atmosphere of this
house--kitchen and everything. And the outdoors was fine--and you----”
“I hoped you’d remember I was part of the scenery!”
“I couldn’t forget it if I wanted to--and I don’t! Do you suppose we
could do it all over again--sometime when you’re not terribly busy?”
“Oh, I’ll try to bear another afternoon with you!”
“Or we might do a theater or a movie?”
“Even that is possible.”
He didn’t know that she was exerting herself to send him away cheerful.
When he said soberly, his hand on the door, “You don’t know how much
you’ve helped me,” she held up her finger warningly.
“Not so serious! Always cheerful!--that’s the watchword!”
“All right! You may have to say that pretty often.”
Her light laugh, charged with friendliness, followed him down the
steps. She had made him forget himself, lifted him several times to
heights he had never known before. He was sorry that he had not asked
her further about the faith to which she had confessed, her God of
the Blue Horizons. The young women he had known were not given to
such utterances,--certainly not while playing very creditable golf!
Her phrase added majesty to the universe, made the invisible God
intelligible and credible. He felt that he could never again look
at the heavens without recalling that phrase of hers. It wakened in
him the sense of a need that he had never known before. It was as if
she had interpreted some baffling passage in a mysterious book and
clarified it. He must see her again; yes, very often he must see her.
But on his way home a dark thought crossed his mind: “_What would
Millicent say if she knew?_”