"Why this is a woman's room!" she exclaimed, puzzled.
He only laughed and drew her along the hall, showing her another bedroom with twin beds, a maid's room, a big clothes press, and finally, a completely furnished
kitchen, very modern with its porcelain baseboard and tiled walls.
"What do you think of all this, Athalie?" he insisted.
"Why it's exquisite, Clive. Whose is it?"
They walked back to the square living-room. He said, teasingly: "Do you remember, the first time I saw you after those four years,—that first evening when I came in to surprise you and found you sitting by the radiator—in your nightie, Athalie?"
"Yes," she said, laughing and blushing as she always did when he tormented her with that souvenir.
"And I said that you ought to have an open fire. And a cat. Didn't I?"
"Yes."
"There's your fire, Athalie;" he drew a match from his tiny flat gold case, struck it, and lighted the nest of pine shavings under the logs;—"and Michael has the cat when you want it."