Her interest in the pursuit of motors did not wane, however, and after trying every known make of car, and investigating the advance reports of all cars designed for manufacture in the early future, she blithely invested her fortune in a sturdy blue Rollsmobile, and was immediately enraptured with the sensation of absolute control of a throbbing engine.
She found it no trifling matter to attend to her regular duties as private secretary, to keep her Cloud Cote dainty and sweet as of yore, to be out in her little blue car on every possible occasion, and still not neglect the Good-Looking Member and the Father-in-law in her campaign against duty.
First of all, she invited the elder Mr. Severs to dinner, and forestalled his refusal by saying: “Please. I have a perfectly wonderful calf’s liver, and I want you to cook it for me. The odor that comes up from the kitchen below is irresistible.”
No father-in-law who loved calf’s liver and a kitchen could withstand that invitation and he found he had accepted before he knew it. To his boundless delight, the dinner was as though designed in Heaven, for his delectation. Clam chowder, calves’ liver and sliced onions, watermelon preserves, and home made apple pie—made by Kitty, who had received rigid orders to provide the richest and juiciest confection possible, overflowing with apples and spice.
As they sat chummily together over a red table-cloth, which Eveley had bought especially for this occasion, she said thoughtfully:
“I believe I am the only really happy person in the world. Do you know why? It is because I am free. I am not dependent on the whims or fancies of any one. I eat what I like, go where I like, sleep when I like. It is the only life. I often think how remarkable it is that you can be so happy living down there with those honeymooners, doing everything to please them, eating what they like, going to bed when they get sleepy. It is wonderfully unselfish of you—but I couldn’t. I have to be free.”
“You are a sensible girl,” he said thoughtfully. “I never saw any one more sensible. Don’t you ever get married. You stay like you are. Holy Mackinaw! Don’t this liver melt in your mouth?”
“I do not really care for an apartment like this,” Eveley went on. “I prefer a cottage, off by itself, with a little garden, and a few chickens in the back yard, just a tiny shack in a eucalyptus grove, a couple of rooms where I can eat in the kitchen and sleep in the living-room.”
“Oh, mama, it sounds like Heaven,” and he rolled his eyes to the ceiling.
“I am looking for a cottage now. If I find exactly what I want, I may move. I should think you would prefer something like that yourself—a little rusty cot and a garden and a dog, where you could smoke all over the house, and have your friend come in for pinochle every night. I do not see how you can live as you do cooped up with a bride and groom.”