After dinner they played auction bridge; Martin loved cards in any form and he undertook to teach Jeannette; Sandy was an old hand at the game, but Beatrice Alexander was but a timid player. After three or four rubbers, the men abandoned the cards, which, Jeannette could see, bored them with such partners, and began matching quarters, and Martin had won eighteen dollars. The last match had been for “double or nothing” and Jeannette was hardly able to stifle the quick breath of relief that came to her lips when Martin won. She had always known Sandy to be liberal-handed and he paid his losses good-humoredly, telling Jeannette in a way that made her believe he meant what he said, that he had had a wonderful evening, and would telephone shortly to ask the Devlins to dinner with him. He generously offered to take Beatrice Alexander home, and Jeannette returned from the elevator, where she and Martin had bidden good-night to their departing guests, to the disorder and smoky atmosphere of their little home with the feeling that it had all been worth while.
“My Lord!” Martin said that night as he lay in bed waiting for her to wind the clock, open the window, snap out the lights and join him, “I wish you had a girl out there in the kitchen to help you with all that mess. Damned if I like the idea of my wife doing all those dirty dishes, and having to clean up everything to-morrow. It will take you all day.”
“Well,” Jeannette answered, “I’ll hate it to-morrow myself. But I really don’t mind very much. I love the idea of entertaining our friends. But we can’t have a girl yet. I’ve got to do my own work for awhile at any rate. You see, Martin, I was figuring it out....”
She had crawled in beside him and at once his arms were about her and she had nestled close to him, her head on his hard shoulder.
“Your friend Sandy’s a corker,” he said, kissing her hair and ignoring her plan of figures and economy. “I like that guy fine. You can have all that eighteen dollars I won from him.”
“Oh, Martin!”
“Sure,—of course.”
“I’ll put it in the till.”
The till was a small round canister intended for tea but converted into a savings bank.
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Martin told her. “You blow it in on yourself, or for something nice for the house.”