“It’s a perfect shame,” she said, “that they can’t offer really good designs in the cheap things. Did you ever see anything so hideous? Tony, if I were you I’d rather eat my breakfast off one of those white kitchen tables—or——”
She broke off suddenly, rushed away down the long room to a group of chastely elegant dining-room furniture and came back after a little with a face of great eagerness to drag her companions away with her. She took them to survey a set of the costliest of all.
“Have you gone crazy?” Anthony inquired.
“Not at all. Tony, just study that table. It’s massive, but it’s simple—simple as beauty always is. Look at those perfectly straight legs—what clever cabinet maker couldn’t copy that in—in ash, Tony? Then there are stains—I’ve heard of them—that rub into wood and then finish in some way so it’s smooth and satiny. You could do that—I’m sure you could. Then you’d get the lovely big top you want. And the chairs—do you see the plain, solid-looking things? I know they could be made this way. Then the dining-room would be simply dear!”
“Juliet, you’re coming on,” declared Anthony with satisfaction that evening as the two, back at the Marcy country place, strolled slowly over the lawn toward the river edge. “At this rate you’ll do for a poor man’s wife yourself some day. That frock you have on now—isn’t that a sort of concession to the humble company you’re in?”
“In what way?” Juliet glanced down at the pale-green gown whose delicate skirts she was daintily lifting, and in which she looked like a flower in its calyx. She had rejoiced to exchange the dusty dress in which she had come home from town for this, which suggested coolness in each fresh fold.
“Why, it strikes me as about the simplest dress I ever saw you wear. Isn’t it really—well—the least expensive thing you have had in that line in some time?”
The amused laugh with which this observation was greeted might have been disconcerting to anybody but Anthony Robeson, but he maintained his ground with calmness.
“How many of these do you think you can furnish Mrs. Anthony with in a year?” Juliet inquired, her lips forcing themselves to soberness, but the laughter lingering in her eyes.