"To some people," Peter had objected, doubtfully, more than once, "there are other things than clothes and food!"
"What things?"
"Well, various things."
"We have books, flowers, music, all out-of-doors," Alix protested, briskly.
"Sympathy, my dear--interpretation self-expression!"
"Tommyrot!" she had responded without animosity. He realized with surprise, not many months after their marriage, that she meant what she said. If she ate and slept and walked and read with her usual healthy relish, she needed nothing more. She was the least exacting of wives. If he was late for a meal, she smiled at him absently, or if, after they had entertained, he apologetically approached her with some reference to an unfortunate sentence or circumstances, she would meet him with a cheerful:
"Angel boy, I never heard you even, or if I did I don't remember it--even if I had heard it, it's true!"
She was one of the rare women who can take marriage calmly, as a matter of course; she had done so since the hour that made her his wife. At her illness she had rebelled; she hated nurses and their fuss, she said. She was perverse with doctors. In an unbelievably short time her magnificent constitution had responded; she was well again, at his side at the steamer rail, as eager for the sights and sounds and smells of Hawaii as if she had never heard of a sick room.
Her only sentiment was for the babies and small animals. She would cuddle rabbits or birds against her brown, lean cheek, and hug her setter enthusiastically. Peter suffered an agony of sympathy whenever she spoke of a child.
"I'd hate all the preliminary fussing, Pete--we both would! But oh, if the Lord would send me six or eight of them!"