Here Ellen, who had been making her fourth unnecessary round with the potatoes, suddenly spluttered and retired to her pantry.
("The ice," remarked Nikolai to Joan, "is beginning to break.")
"I've always thought," mused Archie, "that I'd like to see the world a little myself some time. Armadillos on their native heath, Esquimaux eating tallow candles, the Latin Quarter in Paris whooping it up—things like that. But now," he finished with a happy glance at his wife, "I'm glad enough to be allowed to stay just where I am."
"Who wouldn't be?" murmured his guest. "With such a charming home—"
"You ought to have been here when my garden was growing," said Archie, highly gratified. "If I do say it myself, there's not a farmer in the State raises better bib-lettuce than I do. As for our asparagus—yum-yum! Simply melts in the mouth."
The other looked at him very kindly. "Was that also one of your earlier dreams—to be a farmer?"
Archie nodded. "It's always seemed to me about the finest thing a man could do, if he were able to—live on the land as he was intended to, raise what he needs to eat and a little more for his friends; chickens and pigs and a cow, and perhaps a little blooded stock if he could manage it—" He broke off with a faint sigh.
"Why, dear," cried his wife, surprised, "I never suspected you of these bucolic ambitions!"
"I reckon most men have 'em, if they'll own up to it—don't they, Mr. Nikolai? Look how all boys love to dig in the dirt!... But you needn't worry, darlingest. I'm never going to take you off and bury you in the country. I know better than that!"
It was late when Nikolai rose to leave them, declining an urgent invitation to occupy their guest-room.