"And you'll be getting too rich and grand for the attic now, I suppose." She sighed. "You'll be setting up at some swell boarding-house, maybe, or perhaps at that club where all the young society fellows live?" (Since the Darcy début into society, Ellen was almost as conversant with its inner life as were the Misses Darcy.)
Archie's eye glinted. "The club!—why not? I hadn't thought of that." But then he grinned, "I can see 'em hailing me—'Yere's yer paper, sir!—yere's yer five o'clock edition! All about de mysterious moider on de Island!'—No, I guess it won't do. The little old Y. M. C. A.'s club enough for me. And as for leaving my attic, Mrs. Neal—" he shook his head. "Why, it's home to me. I reckon I'll be here till the roof falls in—which it's likely to do at any moment in a favorable breeze."
"Pooh! You'll be getting married before long, and you won't marry the sort of wife who'll want to live in a garret, neither!"
"Why not?
"A book of verses underneath the roof,
A cup of coffee and an egg in troof,
And Mrs. Neal to cook it up for us—
Ah, attic life were Paradise enoof!"
he warbled; and promptly encored himself amid peals of pleasure. It was his first attempt at composition, and he liked it. (One of the young ladies at the Library had recently introduced him, as may be suspected, to the Rubaiyat. Eduard Desmond was not the only young man who found in the Persian a kindred spirit.)
"Well, of all the crazy galoots!" muttered Ellen, deciding that coffee would do no good here. "You'll have to go now, Mr. Archie; I'm expecting company. Land sakes, six o'clock! and me without my biscuits in the pan."
He observed that the table was set for two, quite magnificently, with a celery glass containing five red carnations in its center.
"Floral decorations! A genuine entertainment—and I not asked! Who, who is the lucky fellow?"
"Go on with your impidence. 'Tain't a fellow. It's—Never you mind who it is! And you needn't think you're going to be discovered here by accident-like, either!"—She was pushing him toward the door as she spoke.