“Yes, indeed, right in your checking account.”
A slow scornful light dawned in Eileen’s eyes. “I see,” she said coldly. “Very selfish, very unprofessional, very unfriendly. He would have his lady love absolutely bankrupt, that he may endow her with all the goods of life.”
“Why, Nolan,” said Eveley weakly, lacking Eileen’s sharper perception, “don’t you know me well enough to realize that if I put it into my checking account it will be gone, absolutely and everlastingly gone, inside of six months, and not a thing to show for it?”
“Yes, I know it,” he admitted humbly.
“And still you advise it?”
“I do not advise it—I just want it,” he admitted plaintively.
Eveley sat quietly for a while, counting her fingers, her lips moving once in a while, forming such words as marriage, travel, princes and banks. Then she clapped her hands and beamed upon them.
“Lovely,” she cried. “Exquisite! Just what I wanted to do myself! You are dear good faithful friends, and wise, too, and you will never know how much your advice has helped me. Then it is all settled, isn’t it? And I shall buy an automobile.”
In a flash, she caught up a pillow, holding it out sharply in front of her, whirling it around like a steering wheel, while she pushed with both feet on imaginary clutches and brakes, and honked shrilly.
But her friends leaned weakly back in their chairs and stared. Then they laughed, and admitted it was what they had expected all the time.