I said:
"No, please, don't give me up. I'll die if you do."
Margaret came in then, and she greeted him very cordially. She chuckled when I called her a "sly thing" for writing to him, and she said she had to let him know, since he had paid for the big room.
"Yes, but you didn't tell him I had the little room," I said.
"What does it matter?" laughed Margaret. "You two are always making mountains out of molehills. Life's too short to waste a single moment of it in argument."
Roger said:
"You are perfectly right. After this, Nora and I are not going to quarrel about anything. She's going to be a reasonable child."
I had to laugh. I knew what he meant by my being reasonable. Nothing mattered this night, however, except that he had come. I told him that, and put my cheek against his hand. I was always doing things like that, for although he was undemonstrative, and the nearest he came to caressing me was to smooth my cheek and hair, I always got as close to him as I could. I'd slip my hand through his arm, or put my hand in his, and my head against him; and when we were out anywhere, I always had my hand in his pocket, and he'd put his hand in over mine. He liked them, too, these ways of mine, for he used to look at me with a queer sort of grim smile that was nevertheless tender.
He was a man used to having his own way, however, and he didn't intend to give in to me in this matter of the rooms. So this is how he finally arranged things: I was to have the little room, and he would take the suite in front. When he was in Chicago, he would use these rooms; but when he was not, I was to have the use of them, and he made me promise that I would use the big room for writing.
This arrangement satisfied Mrs. Kingston and delighted me, but mama was inclined to grumble. She wanted to know just why he should maintain rooms in the house, anyway, and just what he was "after" me for. She was in a perverse and cranky mood. She talked so that I put my hand over her mouth and said she had a bad mind.