It happened that two or three weeks after his marriage Harboro came upon an interesting bit of intelligence in the Eagle Pass Guide, the town’s weekly newspaper. It was a Saturday afternoon (the day of the paper’s publication), and Harboro had gone up to the balcony overlooking the garden. He had carried the newspaper with him. He did not expect to find anything in the chronicles of local happenings, past or prospective, that would interest him. But there was always a department of railroad news—consisting mainly of personal items—which had for him the quality of a letter from home.
Sylvia was down-stairs at work in the dining-room, directing the efforts of old Antonia. Perhaps I should say that she was extraordinarily happy. I doubt very much if she had come to contemplate the married state through Harboro’s eyes; but she seemed to have feared that an avalanche would fall—and none had fallen. Harboro had manifested an unswerving gentleness toward her, and she had begun to “let down,” as swimmers say, with confidence in her ability to find bottom and attain the shore.
When at length she went up to the balcony to tell Harboro that supper was ready, she stood arrested by the pleasantly purposeful expression in his eyes. She had learned, rather creditably, to anticipate him.
“You are to have a new dress,” he announced.
“Yes.... Why?”
“I see here”—he tapped the paper on his knee—“that they’re getting ready for their first dance of the winter at the Mesquite Club.”
She forgot herself. “But we’re not invited!” she said, frankly incredulous.
“Why no, not yet. But we shall be. Why shouldn’t we be?”
Her hand went to her heart in the old wistful way. “I don’t know ... I just thought we shouldn’t be. Those affairs are for ... I’ve never thought they would invite me to one of their dances.”
“Nonsense! They’ve invited me. Now they’ll invite us. I suppose the best milliners are across the river, aren’t they?”