“Well,” sighed Fliss, inspecting her face in the mirror, “this mirror makes humps in my face, but I’d do a lot for you, Matthew. If your mother can stand me—all right, down we go.”
The supper was laid in the tiny dining-room off the living-room. A polished china lamp in the middle of the table was the centerpiece, and the dishes and linen were as spotless as everything else. Matthew and his mother talked casually about local gossip and Fliss watched Matthew, totally unfamiliar in this aspect, in his pleasant interest in the lives of the grocer, the new druggist and the business of the church. Mrs. Allenby, it seemed, was religious. Fliss decided, as she listened to her mother-in-law, that Matthew’s business ability must have come from his mother. She faced a picture of Matthew’s father, hanging over the low door. It was an enlarged photograph, done in cruel colors, but even the glassy blue which the enlarger had given to the eyes of Mr. Allenby, senior, could not disguise the fact that their expression was mild and guileless. Perhaps he, too, had an undeveloped taste for French poetry.
“Have you furnished your house?” asked Mrs. Allenby.
“We aren’t going to take a house at once. There’s an apartment hotel where we shall live for a while.”
“Hotel?”
“It’s not a traveler’s hotel, mother,” said Matthew. “It is a place where the apartments are furnished and there is a common dining-room where you can take your meals if you like.”
“Later we can find a house,” supplied Fliss, “but rents are high.”
“I should think you’d buy a house, now that you’re well off, Matthew.” The sharp, questioning eyes of the old lady flashed from her son to his wife. “Don’t you like housekeeping, Florence?”
“I don’t know a thing about it,” said Fliss, with her usual frankness. She seemed to have hit the right note with Matthew’s mother.
“Well, most girls don’t until they marry. But after you’re married, it comes natural—like taking care of children.”