But Oliver (and somehow it shocked Laura) Oliver had married a wife. He wrote from Chelsea to Justin, wisely, humorously, as from age to heady youth, and could not possibly come. Justin must come up to them instead. Laura, confronted with the letter and a “What do you think of that?” wondered aloud that he did not sign it Paterfamilias. But wasn’t it typical of Oliver? Justin, distinctly disillusioned, said—
“Was it? How?”
“Oh, well, you know, I always did think——”
And so she got her innings at last: was permitted to toy with Oliver, to display Oliver, to turn him round and round, to blow him as if he had been an egg, and at last, crunching him delicately between her fingers, hand the pieces to a converted Justin to toss into the waste-paper basket. It was a great relief to her.
Justin, grunting agreement through a film of smoke, and utterly unaware that he had not always agreed, opined that all the same he must look up Oliver. Would Laura come?
Laura didn’t think she would.
So Justin went by himself. And as the day was foggy and his boredom, thicker than fog, upon him, he found Married Life, as he stumbled in upon it at five o’clock, sitting on the studio floor, with tea-things and firelight and a frieze of Oliver’s Italian canvases for background, a novel and attractive picture.
Married Life was kind to him and gave him a welcome, and many muffins, besides letting him smoke; yet because Married Life had definitely, though quite unobtrusively, another set of delightful manners for a pampered Oliver; because too, excellent wife as she seemed to be making Oliver, there was something in her accent and her voice, a certain obviousness in her red hair (Oliver had been more faithful to Laura than Laura guessed) and because, contradictorily, he rather enjoyed the black challenge of her glances, he found himself reflecting with a new satisfaction upon his own excellent domestic arrangements, on the browner hair and softer eyes of his own Married Life waiting for him in the quiet Brackenhurst future. He came home, less bored, but thoughtful, and, next day, spoke to his mother seriously. He said that surely a year was long enough for Laura to fuss about with a trousseau. He said he hated dilly-dallying in this way. Laura didn’t seem to understand how a man felt. How much longer did she propose to spin out the engagement?
Mrs. Cloud thought he had better talk to Laura.
He did. He said to her firmly—