Wayne and Judith Carey had been keeping house for two months before Judith
was willing to accede to her husband's often repeated request that they
entertain the Robesons.
"We've been there, together and separately, till it's a wonder their
hospitality doesn't freeze up," he urged. "Let's have them out to-morrow
night, and keep them over till next day, at least. I'd like to have them
sleep under this roof. They'd bring us good luck."
"One would think the Robesons were the only people worth knowing," said
Judith, with a petulance of which she had the grace, as her husband stared
at her, to be ashamed.
"They're the truest friends we have in the world," he said, with a dignity
of manner unusual with him. "Sometimes I think they are the only people
worth knowing--out of all those on your calling list."
"We differ about that. Your ideas of who are worth knowing are very
peculiar. Heaven knows I'm fond of Juliet, but I get decidedly tired of
having her held up as a model. And I haven't been anxious to entertain her
until we were in order."
"We're certainly as much in order now as we shall be for some time. Let's
have them out. You'll find they'll see everything there is to praise. It's
their way."
So Anthony and Juliet were asked, and came. Wayne's prophecy was proven a
true one--even Judith grew complacent as her friends admired the result of
her house-furnishing. And in truth there was much to admire. Judith was a
young woman of taste and more or less discretion, and if she could have
had full sway in her purchasing the result might have been admirable. As
it was, the unspoken criticism in the minds of both the guests, as they
followed their hosts about the house, was that Judith had struck a
key-note in her construction of a home a little too ambitious to be wholly
satisfactory.
"I believe in buying the best of everything as far as you go," she said,
indicating a particularly costly lounging chair in a corner of the
living-room. "Of course that was very expensive, but it will always be
right, and we can get others to go with it. The bookcases were another
high-priced purchase, but they give an air to the room worth paying for."
"I've only one objection to this room," said Wayne with some hesitation.
"As Judith says, the things in it seem to be all right, and it certainly
looks in good taste, if I'm any judge, but--I don't know just how to
explain it----" he hesitated again, and smiled deprecatingly at his wife.
"Speak out," said Judith. She was in a very good humour, for her guests
had shown so fine a tact in their commendation that she was in quite a
glow of satisfaction, and for the first time felt the pleasure of the
hostess in an attractive home. "It can't be a serious objection, for
you've liked every single thing we've put into it."
"Indeed I have," agreed Carey, eagerly glancing about the brilliantly lit
room. "I like it all awfully well--especially in the daylight. The corner
by the window is a famous place for reading. But, you see, I'm so little
here in the daytime, except on Sundays. Of course I know we lack the
fireplace that makes your living-room jolly, but it seems as if we lack
something besides that we might have, and for the life of me I can't tell
what it is."
Anthony knew by a certain curve in the corner of his wife's mouth that she
longed to tell him what it was. For himself, he could not discover. He
studied the room searchingly and was unable to determine why, attractive
as it really was, it certainly did, upon this cool May evening, lack the
look of warm comfort and hospitality of which his own home was so full.
"Possibly it's because everything is so new," he ventured. "Rooms come to
have a look of home, you know, just by living in them and leaving things
about. It's a pretty room, all right, and I fancy it will take on the
friendly expression you want when you get to strewing your books and
magazines around a little more, and laying your pipe down on the corner of
the mantel-piece, you know--and all that. I can upset things for you in
half a minute if you'll give me leave."
"You have my full permission," said Judith, laughing. "I fancy it's just
as you say: Wayne isn't used to it yet. He always likes his old slippers
better than the handsomest new ones I can buy him. Come--dinner has been
served for five minutes. No more artistic suggestions till afterward."
The dinner was perfect. It should have been so, for a caterer was in the
kitchen, and a hired waitress served the viands without disaster. As a
delectable meal it was a success; as an exhibition of Mrs. Carey's
capacity for home making, it was something of a failure. It certainly did
not for a moment deceive the guests. For the life of her, as Juliet tasted
course after course of the elaborate meal, she could not help reckoning up
what it had cost. Neither could she refrain from wondering what sort of a
repast Judith would have produced without help.
After dinner, as Wayne and Anthony smoked in front of the fireless
mantel-piece in the den, each in a more luxurious chair than was to be
found in Anthony's whole house, Judith took Juliet to task.
"You may try to disguise it," she complained, "but I've known you too long
not to be able to read you. You would rather have had me cook that dinner
myself and bring it in, all red and blistered from being over the stove."
"As long as the dinner wasn't red and blistered you wouldn't have been
unhappy," Juliet returned lightly. "But you mustn't think that she who
entertains may read my ingenuous face, my dear. It isn't necessary that I
attempt to convert the world to my way of thinking. And I haven't told you
that when Auntie Dingley goes abroad with father again this winter I'm to
have Mary McKaim for eight whole months. I can assure you I know how to
appreciate the comfort of having a competent cook in the kitchen."
She got up and crossed the room. "Judith, what an exquisite lamp," she
observed. "I'd forgotten that you had it. Was it one of your wedding
presents?"
Judith followed her to where she stood examining an imposing,
foreign-looking lamp, with jeweled inlets in the hand-wrought metal shade.
"Yes," she said carelessly, "it's pretty enough. I don't care much for
lamps."
"Not to read by?"
"It's bright enough for anybody but a blind man to read, here." Judith
glanced at the ornate chandelier of electric lights in the centre of the
ceiling. "The rooms aren't so high that the lights are out of reach for
reading."
"But this is beautiful. Have you never used it?"
"It might be used with an electric connection, I suppose. No, I've never
used it as an oil lamp. I hate kerosene oil."
"But you have some in the house?"
"Oh, yes, I think so. Wayne insisted on getting some little hand-lamps.
Something's always happening to the wires out here. That's one of the
numerous joys of living in the suburbs."
"Let's fill this and try it," Juliet suggested, turning a pair of very
bright eyes upon her friend. "If you've never lit it I don't believe
you've half appreciated it. You're neglecting one of the prettiest sources
of decoration you have in the house. Out of sympathy for the giver,
whoever he was, you ought to let his gift have a chance to show you its
beauty."
"Stevens Cathcart gave it to us, I believe," said Judith. "Here, let me
have it. I'll fill it, since you insist. But I never thought very much of
it. It was put away in a closet until we came here. It took up so much
room I never found a place for it."
"Mr. Cathcart gave it to you? That proves my point, that it's worth
admiring. If there's a connoisseur in things of this sort, it's he. He
probably picked it up in some out-of-the-ordinary European shop."
Smiling to herself, as if something gave her satisfaction, Juliet awaited
the return of her hostess. She understood, from the manner of Judith's
exit with the lamp, that the free and easy familiarity with which guests
invaded every portion of Anthony's little home, was not to be made a
precedent for the same sort of thing in Judith's.
The lamp reappeared, accompanied by a lamentation over the disagreeable
qualities of kerosene oil for any use whatever.
"You can put electricity into this and use it as a drop-light, if you
prefer," said Juliet, as she lit it and adjusted the shade. "May I set it
on the big table over here? Right in the center, please, if you don't mind
moving that bowl of carnations. There!--Of course you can send it back to
oblivion over there on the bookcase if you really don't like it.--But you
do like it--don't you?"
"It's handsomer than I thought it was," Judith admitted without
enthusiasm. Juliet glanced up at the blazing chandelier overhead.
"May I turn off some of this light?" she asked. "You won't get the full
beauty of your lamp till you give it a chance by itself."
Judith assented. Juliet snapped off three out of the four lights, and
smiled mischievously at her friend. Then she extinguished the fourth, so
that the only luminary left in the room was the lamp. Judith groaned.
"Maybe you like a gloomy room like this. I don't. Look at it. I can hardly
see anything in the corners."
"Wait a little bit. You're so used to the glare your eyes are not good for
seeing what I mean. Study the lamp itself a minute. Did you ever see
anything so fascinating as the gleam through those jewels? An electric
bulb inside would add to the brilliancy, though it's not so soft a light
to read by, and the effect in the room isn't so warm. Observe those
carnations under the lamplight, honey? Come over here to the doorway and
look at your whole room under these new conditions. Isn't it
charming?--enticing?--Let's draw that lovely Morris chair up close to the
table, as if you were expecting Wayne to come in and read the evening
paper by the lamp. _There!_"
Juliet softly clapped her hands, her face shining with friendly
enthusiasm. There could be no question that the whole room, as she had
said, had taken on a new look of homelike comfort and cheer which it had
lacked before. Even Judith was forced to see it.
"It looks very well," she admitted. "But I should have more light from
above. I like plenty of light."
"So do I, if you manage it well." Whereupon the guest, having gained her
point and made sufficient demonstration of it, turned the conversation
into other channels. But the lamp was not yet through with its position of
reformer. The two men, having finished their cigars, and hearing sounds of
merriment from the adjoining room, came strolling in. Anthony,
comprehending at a glance the change which had come over the aspect of the
room and the cause thereof, advanced, smiling. But Carey came to a
standstill upon the threshold, his lips drawn into an astonished whistle.
"What's happened?" he ejaculated, and stood staring.
"Do you like it?" asked his wife.
"I should say I did. But what's done it? What makes the room look so
different? It looks--why it looks like your rooms!" he cried, gazing at
Anthony.
"He can say nothing more flattering than that," said Judith, evidently not
altogether pleased. "It's the highest compliment he knows."
Carey stared at the lamp. "I didn't know we had that," he said. "Is it
that that does it?"
"I fancy it is," said Anthony. "I never understood it till I was taught,
but it seems to be a fact that a low light in a room gives it a more
homelike effect than a high one. I don't know why. It's one of my wife's
pet theories."
"Well, I must say this is a pretty convincing demonstration of it," Carey
agreed, sitting down in a chair in a corner, his hands in his pockets,
still studying this, to him, remarkable transformation. "It certainly does
look like a happy home now. Before, it was a place to receive calls in."
He turned, smiling contentedly, to his wife. Something about the glance
which she returned warned him that further admiration was unnecessary. The
contented smile faded a little. He got up and came over to the table.
"Now, let's have a good four-handed talk," he proposed.
Two hours later, in the seclusion of the guest-room upstairs, Anthony said
under his breath:
"They're coming on, aren't they? Don't you see glimmerings of hope that
some day this will resemble a home, in a sort of far-off way? Isn't Judith
becoming domesticated a trifle? She didn't get up that dinner?"
Juliet turned upon him a smiling face, and laid her finger on her lip.
"Don't tempt me to discuss it," she warned him. "My feelings might run
away with me, and that would never do under their very roof."
"Exemplary little guest! May I say as much as this, then? I'd give a good
deal to see Wayne speak his mind once in a way, without a side glance to
see if Her Royal Majesty approves."
But Juliet shook her head. "Don't tempt me," she begged again. "There's
something inside of me that boils and boils with rage, and if I should
just take the cover off----"
"Might I get scalded? All right--I'll leave the cover on. Just one
observation more. When I get inside our own four walls again I'm going to
give a tremendous whoop of joy and satisfaction that'll raise the roof
right off the house!"