Part 39 (1/2)
The maid had not yet answered. Waiting in the still porch, winter everywhere beyond it, Carl was all excited antic.i.p.ation. He hastily pressed her hand, and she lightly returned the pressure, laughing, breathing quickly. They started like convicted lovers as the maid opened the door. The consciousness of their starting made them the more embarra.s.sed, and they stammered before the maid. Ruth fled up-stairs, while Carl tried to walk up gravely, though he was tingling with the game.
When he had washed (discovering, as every one newly discovers after every long, chilly walk, that water from the cold tap feels amazingly warm on hands congealed by the tramp), and was loitering in the upper hall, Ruth called to him from Mrs. Needham's room:
”I think you'll find hair-brushes and things in Jack's room, to the right. Oh, I am very stupid; I forgot this was our house; I mean in your room, of course.”
He had a glimpse of her, twisting up a strand of naturally wavy brown hair, a silver-backed hair-brush bright against it, her cheeks flushed to an even crimson, her blue corduroy jacket off, and, warmly intimate in its stead, a blouse of blue satin, opening in a shallow triangle at her throat. With a tender big-brotherliness he sought the room that was his, not Jack's. No longer was this the house of Other People, but one in which he belonged.
”No,” he heard himself explain, ”she isn't beautiful. Istra Nash was nearer that. But, golly! she is such a good pal, and she is beautiful if an English lane is. Oh, stop rambling.... If I could kiss that little honey place at the base of her throat....”
”Yes, Miss Winslow. Coming. _Am_ I ready for dinner? Watch me!”
She confided as he came out into the hall, ”Isn't it terribly confusing to have our home and even three toby-children all ready-made for us, this way!”
Her glance--eyes that always startled him with blue where dark-brown was expected; even teeth showing; head c.o.c.ked sidelong; cheeks burning with fire of December snow--her glance and all her manner trusted him, the outlaw. It was not as an outsider, but as her comrade that he answered:
”Golly! have we a family, too? I always forget. So sorry. But you know--get so busy at the office----”
”Why, I _think_ we have one. I'll go look in the nursery and make sure, but I'm almost positive----”
”No, I'll take your word for it. You're around the house more than I am.... But, oh, say, speaking of that, that reminds me: Woman, if you think that I'm going to buy you a was.h.i.+ng-machine this year, when I've already bought you a napkin-ring and a portrait of Martha Was.h.i.+ngton----”
”_Oh weh!_ I knew I should have a cruel husband who----Joy! I think the maid is prowling about and trying to listen. 'Shhh! The story Laura will get out of her!”
While the maid served dinner, there could scarce have been a more severely correct pair, though Carl did step on her toe when she was saying to the maid, in her best offhand manner, ”Oh, Leah, will you please tell Mrs. Needham that I stole a handkerchief from my--I mean from her room?”
But when the maid had been unable to find any more imaginary crumbs to brush off the table, and had left them alone with their hearts and the dessert, a most rowdy young ”married couple” quarreled violently over the was.h.i.+ng-machine he still refused to buy for her.
Carl insisted that, as suburbanites, they had to play cards, and he taught her pinochle, which he had learned from the bartender of the Bowery saloon. But the cards dropped from their fingers, and they sat before the gas-log in the living-room, in a lazy, perfect happiness, when she said:
”All the while we've been playing cards--and playing the still more dangerous game of being married--I've been thinking how glad I am to know about your life. Somehow----I wonder if you have told so very many?”
”Practically no one.”
”I do----I'm really not fis.h.i.+ng for compliments, but I do want to be found understanding----”
”There's never been any one so understanding.”
Silent then. Carl glanced about the modern room. Ruth's eyes followed.
She nodded as he said:
”But it's really an old farm-house out in the hills where the snow is deep; and there's logs in the fireplace.”
”Yes, and rag carpets.”
”And, oh, Ruth, listen, a bob-sled with----Golly! I suppose it is a little premature to call you 'Ruth,' but after our being married all evening I don't see how I can call you 'Miss Winslow.'”
”No, I'm afraid it would scarcely be proper, under the circ.u.mstances.
Then I must be 'Mrs. Ericson.' Ooh! It makes me think of Norse galleys and northern seas. Of course--your galley was the aeroplane.... 'Mrs.