CHAPTER XXXIX
There is, among the wives and mothers of what the
Misses Darcy were wont to call the polite world, a general conspiracy of silence on the subject of honeymoons. The theory is allowed to go unchallenged that a honeymoon is invariably a period of bliss and romance unalloyed; the conspirators apparently subscribing to the ideas of the stoical parent who teaches his child to swim by throwing him unexpectedly into the water. If he manages to keep afloat, well and good; if he drowns, regrettable; if he comes out alive but with a shrinking cowardice with regard to water that never afterwards leaves him, perhaps it is no concern of his parent's. And again, perhaps it is.
Joan and Archibald Blair returned from their honeymoon not quite as close friends as when they embarked upon it. Joan's manner had gained a certain kindliness, a gentle consideration that was akin to sympathy; whereas Archie, with puzzled eyes and a smile that beamed rather uncertainly, almost evinced his desire to propitiate by rolling over at her feet and holding up four paws to heaven. (Which was no way to propitiate our heroine.)
Honeymoons, however, do not last indefinitely; and by the time Ellen Neal and her furniture and the results of Archie's "twigging" were moved into a certain modest house that simply cried aloud to be purchased (on the installment plan), Archie had grown almost accustomed to the sight of the One and Only seated at his breakfast table en negligée, pouring out his coffee, with a preoccupied word from him now and then as she glanced through the morning paper. (It was characteristic of that household that Joan was the one who read the morning paper.) He kissed her whenever he liked without asking leave; and in return she rumpled up his hair deliciously, and called him "Goose!", and reminded him to bring oranges from downtown because the neighboring grocery had such poor ones.
Joan entered upon the domestic rôle with her usual thoroughness.
At first she had been rather afraid of the expenditure the purchase of a house involved. It sounded to her too much like the large and not very practical ideas of her father. But when Archie pointed out to her that even day laborers managed to own their cottages, thanks to building-associations, and that purchase on this plan was merely a way of saving money, she yielded without undue reluctance. After all, there was not only his salary to be relied upon, but his commissions, dependent upon his own energy, which seemed boundless. Like many poor girls, she was quite ignorant of the value of money. Beyond the purchasing power of a concrete sum, say one thousand dollars, money meant nothing to her at all. Ten thousand dollars, twenty thousand dollars—they seemed very much the same.
The house was its own best advocate; one of the charming English cottage types that are beginning to make home life not only comfortable but dignified for the small householder in our American cities. The neighborhood was excellent, one of the pretty green courts she had long ago coveted; and there was a small garden artfully arranged into vistas and quite an air of privacy by means of shrubbery, and overlooked by a secluded porch whose coolness seemed like paradise to Archie, hurrying to it out of the hot city.
The garden was his part of the establishment; and there he might be observed any morning shortly after sunrise, digging, pruning, whistling tunelessly between his teeth, with one eye on a window whence would presently issue the drowsy voice of Joan, calling, "Good-morning out there, Adam!" Then with a rush Adam would disappear from his garden, leaving spade or hose where he happened to drop them, lest Eve need assistance with buttoning a blouse or tying a shoe.
It was a glorious time for Archie. He was almost painfully happy.