“It will serve you right if she never comes at all!”
“Oh, she's pining to come. She's dying to sacrifice herself for twenty-five dollars a month. Did I tell you, by the way, that I've had a rise in my salary? There is a rise in the work, too, which rather overbalances the increase of pay, but that's understood; for a good many years it will be more work than wage, but at the other end I hope it will be more wage than work. You don't seem to be very much interested in my affairs; if you knew how seldom I speak of them to any one but yourself, you might perhaps deign to listen.”
“I am listening; but I'm thinking, too, that it's getting very late.”
“See, here is my curtain!” he said, dragging out a breadth of heavy stuff. He took it to the window, and threw it over a Chinese lounge that stood beneath. “It's an old serape I picked up at Guadalajara five years ago: the beauty of having a house is that all the old rubbish you have bored yourself with for years immediately becomes respectable and useful. I expect to become so myself. You don't say that you like my curtain!”
“I think it is very pagan looking, and rather—dirty.”
“Well, I shan't make a point of the dirt. I dare say the thing would look just as well if it was clean. Won't you try my lounge?” he said, as she looked restlessly towards the door. “It was invented by a race that can loaf more naturally than we do: it takes an American back some time to relax enough to appreciate it.”
Miss Frances half reluctantly drew her cloak about her, and yielded her Northern slenderness to the long Oriental undulations of the couch. Her head was thrown back, showing her fair throat and the sweet upward curves of her lips and brows.
Arnold gazed at her with too evident delight.
“Why won't you sit still? You cannot deny that you have never been so comfortable in your life before.”
“It's a very good place to 'loaf and invite one's soul,'” she said, rising to a sitting position; “but that isn't my occupation at present. I must go home. It is almost dark.”