"Well, how do you like it?"
The attic ran the whole length of the house and had a big open fireplace at one end. The original windows had been replaced in the front by leaded glass doors, opening on a small balcony. The walls were burlapped and the furniture upholstered in gay chintz. It was a woman's room but it reminded Jean in a way of Flop's, as it might have been if The Bunch had never entered it.
"It's glorious!"
"I'll have a fire lighted right away and the bath's across the hall. There's sure to be plenty of hot water, because the old souse that Philip's wished on us for the last furnace man, nearly explodes the furnace every day." She was at the door, when she turned and added, "Phil's in one of his annoying moods to-night. Don't take it too seriously."
Jean laughed and promised that she would make allowances. But she fancied that Catherine flushed again at this, and wondered why she took him so seriously.
An hour later, refreshed by her bath, Jean heard the dinner-bell and went down with a pleasant sense of curiosity to meet the "four, free, feminine souls." They were seated when she entered and Catherine made the introductions, by pointing each out with her forefinger from the head of the table.
"Beth Marshall, that healthy blonde who looks as if she did Swedish exercise every morning, private secretary on Wall Street. That dark, artistic being next, Gerte Forsythe, magazine writer, and furnishes our emotion. Nan Bonham, deceives the world with her white hair, has the soul of a baby and runs the Presbyterian Relief in Brooklyn. Girls, Jean Herrick, head of the Women's Civic Leagues. It's stew, again."
"And, verily, I say unto you, the stew shall follow the roast, and the hash the stew, until the third and fourth generation of them whose parents come from New England."
"Shut up, Phil. Nobody invited you to come to-night, anyhow." Nevertheless Nan's blue eyes twinkled and Jean knew that she found her cousin's humor amusing.
As Jean spread her napkin, she felt Philip Fletcher sizing her up and she knew that Catherine was watching. She tried to think of something flippant that would show she could enter the mood, but before she could think of anything, more to reassure Catherine than from any desire of Philip Fletcher's approval, Gerte claimed his attention, and Catherine, in evident relief, was talking easily again of her own work, as she had during their walk from the station.