"Let's really see it," Shirley suggested, as they rode home on the front seat of a trolley-car.
"We'd better not," said David, clinging desperately to a dwindling remnant of caution.
"Not to take it, of course. Only to remind us that there are pretty places in the world—waiting for us later on." She snuggled closer to him.
In the morning, of course, they saw the apartment. And it was almost uncanny, Shirley declared, how exactly it matched what she had had in mind. She proceeded to place in fancy David's chairs and desk and lamps, the dining-room furniture that was to be Maizie's wedding gift and the mahogany bedroom suite the Jim Blaisdells had given them. She went into ecstasies over the china closet, the dainty bathroom, the clean convenient kitchen.
"David, can't you see it? With a few small rugs and plain inexpensive curtains and the pictures we have it would be a gem. We'd never feel shabby here. And with the hardwood floors and tiled bath and that kitchen the housework would be so easy." She sighed rapturously.
"We'd better get away. My mouth is beginning to water. I'm sorry, dear." He kissed her to prove it. "But we oughtn't even to consider it."
But at the door she stopped and looked back—a risky business, as Lot's wife once proved. She surveyed the place with a lingering wishful glance.
"I wonder if we couldn't make up the difference in rent by cutting down somewhere else. We could cut the extras in half. And I won't need any new clothes for a whole year—not a single stitch. By that time—" She paused, as it seemed for a reply.
"Do you want it so much, Shirley?"
"Oh, if we only could do it, David!"