"I didn't know," broke in Edith in a sudden burst of laughter, "that there were any houses left nowadays that had those funny old-fashioned storm-doors that you hook on every winter."
"Trust Lucy to pick out the oldest shack in the town," tucked in Ruth, touching the surface of her perfect coiffure with light fingers, and glancing sideways at herself in an old gilt-framed mirror on the wall.
"By the way, Lucy," Edith added, piling it on, I thought, a bit too thick, "people aren't using doilies under ornaments any more. Where are all those stunning plateaus?"
"Dear me," I laughed, bound to be good-natured, "I'd completely forgotten the plateaus. They must be in one of the barrels we haven't opened."
"Haven't opened! I never saw any one like you. Haven't opened! It certainly is a good thing that I've come home."
It was with a sinking heart that I took Edith and Ruth up to the guest-room in which I had put one of Will's black walnut bedroom sets.
"If I'd only known you were coming!" I began going up the stairs trying to explain. "The bureau is chuck-full of silver things—we ought to have a safe. And the closet—all my good dresses are there. We have so little closet-room in this house. In the morning I'll clear it out. I know you'd like separate beds too, but when Will's things were all unpacked there wasn't room for much new furniture. And I'm sorry, Edith, that you haven't a bath connected. We have only one bathroom in the entire house and even that—"
Edith wouldn't let me finish. We were in the guest-room now. Her eyes were on the cut-glass in the corner.
"I ought never to have gone to Europe," she announced. "Never in this world!"
I wished she had never come home, and when I kissed her good-night, all the old rancour and rebellion, dormant for so long, was raging in my heart. I stole downstairs after I was undressed, pulled out Edith's silver service from underneath the stairs and put it on the sideboard; I unlocked Edith's chest of silver, and began laying the breakfast table with the horns-of-plenty; I dragged out some elaborate breakfast napkins; I hauled down from the top shelf of the pantry a Coalport breakfast-set. At one A. M., when I was crawling back stealthily to our room, I had to pass the guest-chamber door. I heard voices, and stopped a moment.