“Peter, you are foolish,” she answered with wonderful pleasure in her voice. She loved to hear Peter talk, even if she thought what he said was foolish. “I want nothing. I was just telling father how pleased I was.”
“You were also telling me how unhappy you were,” her father interjected.
Clarinda sprang from the divan and stood directly in front of her father. “You know that isn’t true. I never said I was anything but happy. Father, I don’t see how you can imagine such things. Tell Peter it isn’t so.”
“All right, all right!” her father answered. “Oh, woman! Oh, woman! Now listen, you two. Since I have made such a grievous mistake, let’s speculate. Listen to the oracle: you, Peter, and you, Clarinda. I have a plan, which I think would do you both good. Ahem!” he cleared his throat, “I find after due consideration of your situation, that your lives are too prosaic. Too much the same thing. Suppose you had a plot, some deep and sinister thing. I admit that the average persons don’t have plots in their lives, but that does not matter, some few do, and why not you? You two should have some deep compelling motive, and there should be some other factor that would probably lead to some horrible situation, a murder, or a great theft, or a dual existence, something that would lead to a tragedy, mixed with blood and gore.”
“Horrible!” exclaimed Clarinda, and Peter shook his head in disagreement.
“But think of the interest you would have!” he added. “Peter could shoot you, or you could shoot Peter. You would have your picture in the papers, with splashing headlines. Instead of leading normal lives you would then undergo a great change, and when you died, people would remember you long enough to go to your funerals.”
“The subject is changed. If you can’t be more cheerful you may go home,” broke in Clarinda.
“I agree with Clarinda,” put in Peter.
“Now, father, you are properly squelched. Let Peter tell us what he did today. That’s more interesting than plots, murders and thefts. I don’t care how prosaic my life is so long as I have you two to take care of me. What did you do, Peter?”
“First of all, I bought the house on the Park Way,” he began. “I had the deed made out in the name of Mrs. Clarinda Thorbald. Second, I had put in the garage a nice little car. The license is made out in the name of Mrs. Clarinda Thorbald. Third, I had hung in one of the closets the coat Mrs. Clarinda Thorbald admired so much the other day. Fourth, I have had placed in the house—let’s see?” Peter told off on his fingers. “A housekeeper of the pickled kind, who has never smiled; this quality has been guaranteed by her last employers. A butler of austere mien, a door man, a first-floor maid, a chef, a chauffeur, a hall boy, two cooks—these are in addition to the chef. Then there is a gardener, a furnace man—Lord! I think it is an army. And that’s not all—” Peter stopped for a moment. “Upstairs off the main hall I have had furnished a room precisely like this one. In it is a very tall lamp, with a pink shade. A divan like this one that we are sitting on. But the greatest of all and the thing that was the most difficult to get—I found for her a father—just the kind I suggested.”