"This being married to a poor novelist isn't so bad after all," I remarked with an air of self-congratulation. "True, our rewards come without reason, but they sometimes rhyme with joy and pride."
Strange to say, I got nothing out of this summer, in a literary way, except the story which I called The Steadfast Widow Delaney, a conception which came to me on my solitary ascent of Sierra Blanca. All the beauty and drama, all the humor and contrast of the trip with the Palmers, had no direct fictional value to me. It is hard to explain why, but so it was. I did not so much as write a poem based on that gorgeous experience.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The White House Musicale
The Homestead on the day of our return, was not only a violent contrast to the castle in Glen Eyrie, but its eaves were dripping with water and its rooms damp and musty. It was sodden with loneliness. Father was in Dakota and mother was away never to return, and the situation would have been quite disheartening to me had it not been for Zulime who did not share my melancholy, or if she did she concealed it under that smiling stoicism which she derived from her deeply philosophic father. She pretended to be glad of the peace of our plain reality.
Life with her was not lacking in variety. From the splendors of Colorado and the luxury of private cars and palatial chambers, she now dropped, with a suddenness which should have been disconcerting, to the level of scouring pots and cooking her own meals. It was several days before we succeeded in finding a cook. "This is what it means to be the wife of an unpopular novelist," I said to her.
"I'm not complaining. It's fun," she replied.
The house was soon in order and when my brother arrived later in the week, she greeted him with the composure of a leisured hostess. In such wise she met every demand upon her.