"But they'd never live there if they married!"
"Nevertheless," said Eleanore, "that's one of the ways a girl makes up her mind." She looked pityingly into my eyes. "Women are beyond you—aren't they, dear?" she murmured.
"J. K. isn't," I rejoined. "And I can't see him in any home!"
"Can't you! Then watch him a little closer the next time he comes to ours."
I went out for a walk along the docks and tried to picture the coming strike. When I came home I found Joe there, he had come to go with us to Brooklyn. He was sitting on the floor with our boy gravely intent on a toy circus. Neither one was saying a word, but as Joe carefully poised an elephant on the top of a tall red ladder, I recalled my wife's injunction. By Jove, he did fit into a home, here certainly was a different Joe. He did not see me at the door. Later I called to him from our bedroom:
"Say, Joe. Don't you want to come in and wash?"
He came in, and presently watching him I noticed his glances about our room. It was most decidedly Eleanore's room, from the flowered curtains to the warm soft rug on the floor. It was gay, it was quiet and restful, it was intimately personal. Here was her desk with a small heap of letters and photographs of our son and of me, and here close by was her dressing-table strewn with all its dainty equipment. A few invitations were stuck in the mirror. Eleanore's hat and crumpled white gloves lay on our bed. I had thrown my coat beside them. There were such things in this small room as Joe had never dreamed of.
"Oh Joe," said Eleanore from the hall. "Don't you want to come into the nursery? Somebody wants a pillow fight."
"Sure," said Joe, with a queer little start.
"By the way," I heard her add outside. "Billy told me he saw Mrs. Marsh, and I should so like to meet her, too. Couldn't you have us all down to your room some evening?"