“Several, as girlishly demure as that, I fancy,” asserted the young man with confidence.
But Juliet’s momentary gravity broke down. “Oh, you clever boy!” she said. “I shall advise Mrs. Anthony to send you shopping for her when she needs a new frock. You will order home just what she wants without stopping to ask the price, you will be so confident that you know a cheap thing when you see it. Afterward you will pay the bill—and then the awful frown on your brow! You will have to live on bread and milk for a month to get your accounts straightened out. Oh, Tony!—No, I shouldn’t do for a poor man’s wife—not judging by this ‘girlishly demure’ gown, you poor lamb.—But, Tony,” with a swift change of manner, “I do think the little house will be very charming indeed. I can hardly wait to know that the painting and papering are done, so that we can go down and get things in order. I long to arrange those fascinating new tin things in that bit of a cupboard. Tony”—turning to him solemnly—“does she know how to cook?”
“I think she is learning now,” he assured her. “Seems to me she mentioned it in to-day’s——” He fumbled in his breast-pocket and brought out a letter.
Juliet stole an interested glance at it. She observed that there were three closely written sheets of the heavy linen paper, and that the handwriting was one suggestive of a pleasing individuality. Anthony, in the dim twilight, was scanning page after page in a lover’s absorbed way. Juliet walked along by his side in silence. She was thinking of the face in the photograph, and wondering if Miss Eleanor Langham really loved Anthony Robeson as he deserved to be loved.
“For he is a dear, dear fellow,” she said to herself, “and if she could just see him planning so enthusiastically for her comfort, even if he does have to economise, she’d——”
“No, it’s not in this letter,” observed Anthony, putting the sheets together with a lingering touch which did not escape his companion’s quick eyes. “It must have been in yesterday’s.”
“Does she write every day?”
“Did you ever hear of an engaged pair who didn’t write every day?”
“It must take a good deal of your time,” she remarked. “But, of course, she can cook. Every sane girl takes a cooking-school course nowadays. It’s as essential as French.”