“Baby asleep?” asked Judith Carey, as she and Wayne settled comfortably into two of the deep bamboo chairs with which the porch was furnished.
“To be sure he’s asleep at this hour,” Anthony assured her proudly; “been asleep for two hours. Regular as a clock, that youngster. Nurse trained him right at the beginning, and Juliet has kept it up. Four months old now, and sleeps from six at night till four in the morning without waking. How’s that?”
“I suppose it’s remarkable,” agreed Wayne meekly, “but I don’t know anything about it. He might sleep twenty-three hours out of twenty-four—I shouldn’t understand whether to call him a prodigy or an idiot.”
“Why, yes, you would,” Judith interposed with spirit. “Think of that baby on the floor above us. They’re walking the floor half the night with her.”
“Girl babies may be different,” Carey suggested diffidently, at which Anthony shouted. “I don’t care—all the girls I ever knew wanted to sit up nights,” Carey insisted with a feeble grin.
Juliet came out, welcoming her friends with the cordiality for which she was famous. “It’s so hot in town,” she condoled with them. “You should get out into our delicious air oftener. Somehow, with our breezes we don’t mind the heat.”
“It’s heaven here, anyhow,” sighed Carey, stretching back in his chair with a long breath. Judith looked sober.
“You say it’s heaven,” commented Anthony, staring hard at his friend, “and you profess to admire everything we do, and eat, and say, but you continue to pay good money every week for a lot of extremely dubious comforts—from my point of view.”
“It’s one of the very best places in that part of the city,” protested Judith.
Anthony eyed her keenly. “Yes; if that’s what you’re paying for you’ve got it, I admit. If it’s a consolation to you to know that the address you give when you go shopping is one that you’re not ashamed of—why, you’re all right. But I reckon Juliet here doesn’t blush when she orders things sent home to the country.”