“I wish Polly knew how to make a kitchen look like this,—or that I did! May I sit here? Go on now and talk. Aren’t you afraid of mussing your apron?”
Olive was rolling up her sleeves, which she had pulled down before answering the bell. She wore the costume of her teaching office—a blue and white cotton dress. She tied on a white apron, at which Zelda exclaimed mockingly.
“It’s in your honor, Lady Zee; and you know that a soiled gingham apron can’t get any more soileder than a white one.”
“You look mighty useful, Olive Merriam, considering how frivolous you were last night. I have a new glory now,—I’m Olive Merriam’s cousin. I expected to find a line of carriages at the door when I came, but I suppose they’re afraid to come on a holiday. What are you doing to those pans? Butter? I didn’t know you had to do that. I wonder if Polly knows! Hers always burn on the bottom, but I let it go because it’s better burnt than underdone. As I was saying, you certainly made Papa Schmidt’s opera go tremendously.”
“I oughtn’t really to speak to you. I forgot in my joy at seeing you that I had resolved to give you up forever. If I hadn’t had baking to do, I should have gone to bed and stayed in bed all day. You have put me in a nice box, haven’t you? I might have had some friends if you hadn’t played that trick on me.”
She turned, balancing a symmetrical ball of dough in one hand, and leaned against the kitchen table.
“You look perfectly charming in that make-up,” remarked Zelda, composedly. “And with that strange object in your hand you might pose as Liberty delighting the world. What were you saying? Oh, yes! You are going to cast me off and be done with me.” And then, as though speaking with a great effort, and clasping her hands at her throat to ease its pain: “My throat isn’t really strong yet. The little I did last night must have strained it. So don’t harass me!”
“I’d like to laugh at you, but I can’t. Everybody thinks I persuaded you to let me take the chief part in the opera to put myself before the public. I’m ashamed of myself! I ought to have refused to go ahead, when I saw that you were making me,—as they say in books,—your plaything. If I had been known to anybody it would have been different; but as it was—”
She bent down with the bread pan and Zelda opened the oven door for her.
“Polly always slams the door. Isn’t that right?”