“We have not. That was a great oversight. We will invite our friends, and have some nuts and raisins.”
“Nuts and raisins! And be called mean by everybody!”
“Well, what do you propose?” I inquired, though I was rather appalled at the idea of paying the bills for a large party.
“I don’t know; but if we invite all our friends, we must not be mean about it. Besides, I hope mother will come, and then we shall be able to make it all up.”
“I hope she will.”
We proceeded to discuss the details of the house-warming. Lilian thought it would be cheaper and more stylish to have Smith take charge of the whole thing. He would provide all the eatables, and place a cream-colored waiter in white cotton gloves in the hall to open the door for the guests. She thought it would be more “re-church-y,” and, of course, I could not stand up against this tremendous argument. As I was busy at the bank, she would call and see Smith herself the next forenoon.
She had just been restored to me, and I could not deny her anything. I think it would have broken her heart to know that I was up to my ears in debt; that I could not afford to pay Smith for even a moderate thing in his line. I ought to have told her the truth, the whole truth, but I had not the courage to do so. I knew very well that the life we had been living at her mother’s was just as distasteful and disagreeable to her as to me. She had consented to it for her mother’s sake, and had been a martyr since the day we returned from our bridal tour. I need not say that she was fond of style and show, and she had deprived herself of all these luxuries for the benefit of her family. The chain was broken, and the first thing was a party.
I could not help myself without being a tyrant. Smith’s bill at the outside could not be over a hundred dollars, and that would not kill me for once. It occurred to me that I would limit the expenses to one hundred dollars, but I did not see how they could exceed this sum; so I decided to let Lilian manage the whole affair to suit herself. I have no doubt she would have done very well, and that the result would have been satisfactory to me, but unfortunately my wife’s ideas were different from mine. By an act of grace on the part of a very wealthy gentleman to whom I had been able to render some service, we were invited to a great birthday party of his daughter, shortly after our marriage. Lilian’s pretty face and graceful figure made her a great favorite among the gentlemen, and she made quite a sensation. Of course I was proud of her and Lilian deemed it the most fortunate thing in the world to obtain the entree of such company.