"Not much! I know you too well to be punctual," Nona laughed.
Lita widened her eyes. "Are you suggesting that I'm not? Well, then, how about your ideal brother?"
"He's down town working to keep a roof over your head and your son's."
Lita shrugged. "Oh, a roof—I don't care much for roofs, do you—or is it rooves? Not this one, at any rate." She caught Nona by the shoulders, held her at arm's-length, and with tilted head and persuasively narrowed eyes, demanded: "This room is awful, isn't it? Now acknowledge that it is! And Jim won't give me the money to do it over."
"Do it over? But, Lita, you did it exactly as you pleased two years ago!"
"Two years ago? Do you mean to say you like anything that you liked two years ago?"
"Yes—you!" Nona retorted: adding rather helplessly: "And, besides, everybody admires the room so much—." She stopped, feeling that she was talking exactly like her mother.
Lita's little hands dropped in a gesture of despair. "That's just it! Everybody admires it. Even Mrs. Manford does. And when you think what sort of things Everybody admires! What's the use of pretending, Nona? It's the typical cliché drawing-room. Every one of the couples who were married the year we were has one like it. The first time Tommy Ardwin saw it—you know he's the new decorator—he said: 'Gracious, how familiar all this seems!' and began to whistle 'Home, Sweet Home'!"
"But of course he would, you simpleton! When what he wants is to be asked to do it over!"
Lita heaved a sigh. "If he only could! Perhaps he might reconcile me to this house. But I don't believe anybody could do that." She glanced about her with an air of ineffable disgust. "I'd like to throw everything in it into the street. I've been so bored here."