"You wait till you see what a good cook I'm getting to be! There is stuff you can get to eat for thirty cents, if you hunt round. Oh!" exclaimed Martha Kenworthy. "There's dad home. I heard the car stop," she sighed.
In the living room she confronted him.
"Hello, kiddo!" he cried. "You here?" He looked at Emily, and then he grew cordial. He knew he couldn't have made his wife's face shine so. "It's pretty good to see you again!" He kissed her. "You drove down? Did you borrow the car from the fire department? Whose is it?"
"It's mine," said Martha.
"No!"
"Yes, it's mine."
"Huh! I'd have given you one at wholesale."
Emily knew Bob felt brutally slighted. If there was one subject on which he might expect a daughter to ask his advice, surely it was on the purchase of a car. Emily felt that, but Bob never uttered one word of complaint. It was unexpected nobleness of him. She knew why: he had been worried by her dejection and loneliness. If having that girl at home made Emily gay again, he was determined not to antagonize her.
So peace reigned over the asparagus at the supper table. Emily got the candles out, because Martha loved them. And when the fragrant dusk deepened, it was Martha who rose to light them, as usual.
"Don't they make just a sweet light here?" she asked Miss Curtis. She sat looking at them flickering; she watched the shadows of them, and the way they lit up the apple-blossom bouquet she had brought in.