"I'd be willing to do this every morning—for you—for us," he ventured, his heart thumping at its own dauntlessness.
She evaded the implied proposal as she ransacked a cabinet. "I fancy it would rather lose its charm in time. As a regular thing, I like to see breakfast brought up on a tray by a nice-looking maid."
She brought out a perilous, double arm-load of cups and saucers, and a sugar-bowl.
"This is the service china, I suppose. You could drive nails with it."
He stared at her with idolatry. She was so variously beautiful; at the theater, the opera, the luncheon, here in a country kitchen—everywhere somebody else, and everybody of her beautiful. His hands went out to seize her again, but she tumbled the crockery crackingly on the table and waved a cup at him. "Stand back, or I'll brain you with this. There's no cream. I suppose even the cows aren't up yet. And I can't find any butter—or any bread—just these tinned biscuits."
They sat at the kitchen table. The coffee was not good, really; but she found it amusing, and he thought it was ambrosia—Mars and Venus at breakfast in an Olympian dining-room. He told her something of the sort, and implied once more that he longed to make the arrangement permanent.
"I wish you'd quit proposing before breakfast," she said. "I feel very material in the morning, anyway, and I'm having a bully time. I'm feeling far too sensible to listen to any nonsense about the simple life. I can enjoy a bit of rough road as well as anybody. I can turn in and work or do without, or dress in rags—anything for a picnic—for a while. But as a regular thing—ugh! To get breakfast once in somebody's else kitchen at an ungodly hour with a captivating stranger—glorious! But to get up every morning—every every morning, rain or shine, cold or hot, sleepy or sick or blue—no, thank you!"
"You think the rich are happier than the poor?"
"Of course they are. That's why everybody wants to be rich."
"But the rich aren't contented."