“Pigs?” Eloise stared. She had assumed that a girl of Lucy’s type would affect an elaborate attitude of leisure. And here she was, instead, fashionably energetic.
They fed the pigs, it seemed, actually. “Of course not the big ones. But the little ones have their bottles. There are ten and their mother died. You should see Del and me. He carries the bottle in a metal holder—round,”—Lucy’s hand described the shape,—“and when they see him coming they all squeal, and it’s adorable.”
Lucy’s air was demure. She was very happy. She was a woman of strong spirit. Already she had interested her weak husband beyond anything he had ever known in his drifting days of bachelorhood. “After dinner,” she told Eloise, “I’ll show you Del’s roses. They are quite marvellous. I think his collection will be beyond anything in this part of the country.”
Delafield, coming up, said, “They are Lucy’s roses, but she says I am to do the work.”
“But why not have a gardener?” Eloise demanded.
“Oh, we have. But I should hate to have our garden a mere matter of—mechanics. Del has some splendid ideas. We are going to work for the flower shows. Prizes and all that.”
Delafield purred like a pussy-cat. “I shall name my first rose the ‘Little Lucy Logan.’”
Edith, locking arms with Jane, a little later, as they strolled under a wisteria-hung trellis towards the fountain, said, “Lucy’s making a man of him because she loves him. And I would have laughed at him. We would have bored each other to death.”
“They will never be bored,” Jane decided, “with their roses and their little pigs.”
They had reached the fountain. It was an old-fashioned one, with thin streams of water spouting up from the bill of a bronzed crane. There were goldfish in the pool, and a big green frog leaped from a lily pad. Beyond the fountain the wisteria roofed a path of pale light. A peacock walked slowly towards them, its long tail sweeping the ground in burnished beauty.