“If I’m as tired of it as you are—” began Juliet, and stopped. “But seriously, Judith, is it nothing to you to please Wayne?”
“Why, of course.” Judith flushed. “But Wayne is satisfied.”
“Are you sure of it?”
“Certainly. Oh, sometimes, when we go to see you, and you make things so pleasant with your big fire and your good things to eat, he gets a spasm of wishing we were by ourselves, but——”
Juliet shook her head. “Wayne doesn’t say a word,” she said, “and he’s as devoted to you as a man can be. But, Judith, if I know the symptoms, that husband of yours is starving for a home, and—do I dare say it?”
Judith was staring out of the window at the ugly walls opposite. It was her bedroom window, and the opposite walls were not six feet away.
“I suppose you dare say anything,” she answered, looking as if she were about to cry. “I’m sure I envy you, you’re so supremely contented. I don’t think I was made to care for children.”
“That might come,” said Juliet softly. “I’m sure it would, Judith. As for Wayne, if you could see the look on his face I’ve surprised there more than once, when he had little Anthony, and he thought nobody noticed, it would make your heart ache, dear. Don’t deny him—or yourself—the best thing that can happen to either of you. At least, don’t deny it for lack of a home. I’m sure I can’t imagine Tony, Junior, in these rooms of yours. They don’t look,” she explained, smiling, “exactly babyish.”
She rose to go. She looked so young and fair and sweet as she spoke her gentle homily that Judith, half doubting, half believing, admitted to herself that of one thing there could be no question: Mrs. Anthony Robeson envied nobody upon the face of the earth.
The visits of the Robesons to the various apartments which were in rotation occupied by the Careys were few. Somehow it seemed much easier and simpler for the pair who had no children, and no housekeeping to hamper them, to run out into the suburbs than for their friends to get into town. So the Careys came with ever increasing frequency, always warmly welcomed, and enjoyed the hours within the little house so thoroughly that in time the influence of the content they saw so often began to have its inevitable effect.