“I should say I did. But what’s done it? What makes the room look so different? It looks—why it looks like your rooms!” he cried, gazing at Anthony.
“He can say nothing more flattering than that,” said Judith, evidently not altogether pleased. “It’s the highest compliment he knows.”
Carey stared at the lamp. “I didn’t know we had that,” he said. “Is it that that does it?”
“I fancy it is,” said Anthony. “I never understood it till I was taught, but it seems to be a fact that a low light in a room gives it a more homelike effect than a high one. I don’t know why. It’s one of my wife’s pet theories.”
“Well, I must say this is a pretty convincing demonstration of it,” Carey agreed, sitting down in a chair in a corner, his hands in his pockets, still studying this, to him, remarkable transformation. “It certainly does look like a happy home now. Before, it was a place to receive calls in.” He turned, smiling contentedly, to his wife. Something about the glance which she returned warned him that further admiration was unnecessary. The contented smile faded a little. He got up and came over to the table. “Now, let’s have a good four-handed talk,” he proposed.
Two hours later, in the seclusion of the guest-room upstairs, Anthony said under his breath:
“They’re coming on, aren’t they? Don’t you see glimmerings of hope that some day this will resemble a home, in a sort of far-off way? Isn’t Judith becoming domesticated a trifle? She didn’t get up that dinner?”
Juliet turned upon him a smiling face, and laid her finger on her lip. “Don’t tempt me to discuss it,” she warned him. “My feelings might run away with me, and that would never do under their very roof.”
“Exemplary little guest! May I say as much as this, then? I’d give a good deal to see Wayne speak his mind once in a way, without a side glance to see if Her Royal Majesty approves.”
But Juliet shook her head. “Don’t tempt me,” she begged again. “There’s something inside of me that boils and boils with rage, and if I should just take the cover off——”