When the door closed on the three Juliet produced from somewhere two
aprons--attractive affairs on the pinafore order--one of which she slipped
upon Rachel, the other donned herself.
"These are my kitchen party-aprons," she said gayly, noting how the pretty
garment became the girl, "calculated to impress the masculine mind with
the charm of domesticity in women. The doctor needs a little illustrated
lesson of the sort. Life in boarding-houses isn't adapted to encourage a
man in the belief that real comfort is to be found anywhere outside of a
bachelor's club."
Before he was called the doctor forsook a half-smoked cigar and the
seductive hollows of Anthony's easiest chair and marched briskly out to
the kitchen.
"You see I distrust you," he announced, putting in his head at the door.
"I'm afraid you will get them all done without me."
"Not a bit of it. Here you are," and Juliet tied a big white apron about a
large-sized waist. "Here's your towel. No, don't touch the glass; a man is
too unconscious of his strength."
"A surgeon?" demurred Rachel softly, from over her steaming dishpan.
"Thank you, Miss Redding," said the doctor, smiling.
"Ah, how stupid of me," Juliet made amends swiftly. "Miss Redding
remembers that when I got my telephone message to-night I told her that
the most distinguished young specialist in the city was coming here to
dinner. A hand trained to such delicate tasks as those of surgery--here,
Dr. Roger Barnes, forgive me, and wipe my most precious goblets."
"You'll have my nerves unsteady with such speeches as that," said he, but
he accepted the trust. He held the goblets and the other daintily cut and
engraved pieces of glass with evident pleasure in the task.
Meanwhile Juliet and Rachel made rapid work of the greater part of the
dishes, handling thin china with the dexterity of housewives who love
their work--and their china. Talk and laughter flowed brightly through it
all, and when the doctor had finished his glass he looked disappointed at
seeing not much left to do. At the moment Rachel was scrubbing and
scraping a big baking-dish, portions of whose surface strongly resisted
her efforts, in spite of previous soaking. The assistant, looking about
him for new worlds to conquer, fell upon this dish.
"Here, here," said he, "let me have it. I'll use on it some of the
unconscious strength Mrs. Robeson credits me with."
But Rachel clung to the dish. "Proper housekeepers," she averred, "always
say 'That's all, thank you,' as soon as the china is done, and finish the
pots and kettles after the guest has gone back to pleasanter things."
"I see. Did you ever have a man for dish-wiper before?"
"Never a surgeon," admitted Miss Redding.
"Then you don't appreciate the fact that a man likes to do big things
which make the most show and get the credit for them."
He took the dish away from her by a dexterous little twist in which
conscious strength certainly asserted itself. Rachel, laughing, with a
dash of colour in cheeks which were normally of dark ivory tints, accepted
the dish-towel he handed her.
* * * * *
"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.