"Because I want to, chiefly. Also I think everybody--male and female--ought to know how."
Jack groaned.
"Thence to dressmaking and millinery, I suppose?"
"Hardly. I haven't the slightest interest in sewing, though I could do it on a pinch I believe. I know I couldn't trim a hat--at least not one I would wear. But cooking is different. I believe I could get up quite a passion for it. Hilda used to. She claimed it was just as much an art to create a perfect salad as to write a sonnet."
"I'd vote for the salad personally. By the way, where is Hilda? Heard lately?"
"No, and I'm worried. One hears such horrid stories of what is happening over there. I don't know whether she and the Armstrongs can't get back or don't want to."
"Most likely the latter. Johnny Armstrong is darned likely to do what he wants. He is just the boy not to want to get back to safe and sane America. He is much more apt to be down in a trench or up in a 'plane by this time."
"I know. He's a wonder--one of the finest men I know. Just to think he was my gardener once! Wasn't it funny?"
"He got mighty good pay for that piece of masquerading. Constance is a shade too much on the grand duchess order for my taste but she suits him down to the ground. Only wish Isabel had drawn a man like John instead of the rotter she took a fancy to marry." For a moment Jack's serene brow looked thundery. "Queer world!" he muttered. "Sometimes I think we Amidons are doomed to go amuck one way or another. Jeanette's not much better off. Guess we're all sort of rudderless as you say, excepting Dad. He knows where he is going all right."
"You had better get on to his ship then," suggested Sylvia a little dryly.