"You forget that I explored it before kindly bringing you here," answered her husband, turning more comfortably on his pillow. "Aren't you grateful to me?" He suddenly regarded her with amazement. "Why are you doing your hair in that small, hard bun?"
Aileen skewered the bun in question with a final careful hairpin.
"There is going to be an amount of dust raised in this house to-day that will make up for the years during which it has never seen a spring-cleaning," she answered. "And my hair is clean. So I screw it in a bun, and presently I shall also tie it in one of your largest handkerchiefs. Then I shall sally forth and attack our new home with a broom."
"To do which, you must be fed," said Tom, getting up with a quick movement and disappearing towards the bathroom.
"How he'll hate that wet pillow-case!" Aileen murmured. Inspiration came to her, and she dived into a trunk, which, after a moment's rummaging, revealed a large brown towel. Thrust in at the bathroom door, this induced gasping sounds of gratitude.
The newspaper tablecloth of last night did duty for breakfast also; and breakfast was eggs, boiled over a spirit-lamp, and tea, which Tom brewed in the kitchen. Garth, delighted at what he regarded as a huge picnic, trotted here and there, helping and hindering with equal enthusiasm.
"I've made a tour of the house," Aileen said, manipulating an enormous brown tea-pot; "and I want to map out our plan of campaign. What are you going to do?"
"Help you, until the place is clean," said her husband, looking at her. She was an unfamiliar Aileen, in a blue overall, short and workmanlike, and with her tightly-screwed hair. Tom came to the conclusion that he liked it. "What do we do first?"
"Good housewives, I have always read, begin by setting their kitchen in order," she answered. "But I think I would rather have clean bedrooms first; and I propose to ignore the kitchen. It's dirtier than all the rest of the house put together, and I feel that it will keep. If we could set up the oil-stove in the lobby we could boil kettles and things there. I brought an enormous piece of cooked corned-beef, so we shan't need to cook."
"First-rate idea," said Tom approvingly. "What about the kid? Does he eat corned-beef?"