Sydney agreed readily and both went at it.
“We’ll serve it in courses. I’ll wait on you two, and we’ll make her think of old days, when she had servants at every turn.”
“How do you know she had them? Did she tell you?” Sydney speculated upon her confidences to Max, thinking they must have been much greater than any she had given him. But Max’s laughing reply disarmed him.
“She’s scarcely mentioned her past life to me; but can’t you see? She betrays at every turn the fact of her gentle breeding and familiarity with luxury.”
Sydney saw that it was because like knows like that Max understood these things.
He set the table with great ceremony, putting on all the silver he could find, meanwhile suggesting many unusual dishes from which they selected those they knew how to prepare or those that “sounded easy.” Max brought the nicest linen, and from the greenhouses fragrant flowers, arranging a center piece that Sydney admired, secretly envying Max his skill.
Mrs. Schmitz came like a joyous, fragrant summer wind. She seemed to bring life to a dead house; sweetness, goodness; in short, motherhood.
She laughed, exclaimed, kissed each boy on the cheek—and Sydney blushed with bashfulness. She took off her hat and ran to the dining room, saying she must start dinner. Max caught her back and himself took off her coat. Then she started toward the side door that led to the nursery, and Sydney interrupted her there.
“Dinner’s most ready,” he announced with importance.
“What? You boys the dinner cook?”