"Get your car, my poor child, by all means. Get your car. But a dictionary is what you really need."
The rest of the evening they were enthusiastic almost to the point of incoherency. Kitty was in raptures over an exquisite red racer she had seen on the street. Miriam described Mary Pickford"s rose-upholstered car, and applied it to Eveley"s features. Nolan developed a surprisingly intimate knowledge of carburetors, horse-powers and cylinders.
When at last they braved the rustic stairway, homeward bound, with exclamatory gasps and squeals, gradually drifting away into silence, Eveley sat down on the floor to take off her shoes--a most childish habit carried over into the years of age and wisdom--and was immediately wrapped in happy thoughts where stunning motor clothes and whirring engines and Nolan"s pleasant eyes were harmoniously mingled. And when at last she started up into active consciousness again, and rushed pellmell to bed, mindful of her responsibility as a business girl, sleep came very slowly. And when it came at last, it was a chaotic jumble of excited dreams and tossings.
The life of the bride and groom in the nest beneath Eveley"s Cloud Cote had progressed so sweetly and smoothly that Eveley had come to feel it was quite a friendly dispensation of Providence that permitted her to live one story up from Honeymooning. So the next morning, in the midst of the confusion that came from dressing and getting her breakfast and reading motor ads in the morning paper at the same time, she was utterly electrified to hear a sudden sharp cry of anguish from little Mrs. Bride beneath--a cry accompanied by sounds caused by nothing in the world but a pa.s.sionate and hysterical pounding of small but violent feet upon the floor.
"Oooooh, oooooh, don"t talk to me, Dody, I can"t bear it. I can"t, I can"t. Ooooh, I wish I were dead. Go away, go away this instant and let me die. Oh, I shall run away, I shall kill myself! Oooooh!"
"Dearie, sweetie, don"t," begged Mr. Groom distractedly. "Lovie, precious, please." And his voice faded off into tender inarticulate whispers.
For a long second Eveley was speechless. Then she said aloud, very grimly, "Hum. It has begun. I suppose I may look for flat-irons and rolling-pins next. Hereafter they are Mr. and Mrs. Ordinary Married People."
After long and patient, demonstrative pleading on his part, Mrs. Severs was evidently restored to a semblance of reason and content, and quiet reigned for a while until the slam of the door indicated that Mr. Severs had heeded the call of business.
Almost immediately there came a quick creaking of the rustic stairs and a light tap on Eveley"s window.
"Come in," she called pleasantly. "I sort of expected you. You will excuse me, won"t you, for not getting up, but I have only fifteen minutes to finish my breakfast and catch the car."
"You are awfully businesslike, aren"t you?" asked Mrs. Severs admiringly.
"Yes, I will have a cup of coffee, thanks. I need all the stimulation I can get."
She was pale, and her eyes were red-rimmed, Eveley noted commiseratingly.
"We are expecting an addition to our family this afternoon, Miss Ainsworth," she began, her chin quivering childishly.
"Mercy!" gasped Eveley.
"Our father-in-law," added Mrs. Severs quickly. "Dody"s father. He is coming to live with us."
"Oh!" breathed Eveley. "Won"t that be lovely?"
Mrs. Severs burst into pa.s.sionate weeping. "It won"t be lovely," she sobbed. "It will be ghastly." She sat up abruptly and wiped her eyes. "He is the most heart-breaking thing you ever saw, and he doesn"t like me. He doesn"t approve of dimples, and he says I am soft. And he has the most desperate old chum you ever saw, a perfect wreck with red whiskers, and they get together every night and play pinochle and smoke smelly old pipes, and he won"t have curtains in his bedroom, and he is crazy about a phonograph, and he won"t eat my cooking."
"I should think you would like that," said Eveley. "Maybe he will cook for himself."
"That is just it," wailed Mrs. Severs. "He does. He cooks the smelliest kind of corn beef and cabbage, and eats liver by the--by the cow, and has raw onions with every meal. And he drinks tea by the gallon. And he cooks everything himself and piles it on his plate like a mountain and carries it to the table and sits there and eats it right before company and everybody."
"I don"t see how Mr. Severs ever came to have a father like that," said Eveley in open surprise.
"Well, the funny thing about it is that he would really be very nice if he wasn"t so outrageous. And he swears terribly. He says "Holy Mackinaw"
at everything. But he loves Dody. They lived together for years, and it nearly killed him when Dody got married. And Dody said, "You will live with us of course, father," and so we expected it. But he went off for a visit after we were married--he and the red-whiskered friend, and we sort of thought--we kind of hoped--miracles do happen, you know--and so I just kept believing that something would turn up to save us. But it didn"t.
Dody got a letter this morning, and he will be here this afternoon. Oh, I wish I were dead."
"Is he terribly poor?"
"Mercy, no! He"s got plenty of money. Lots more than we have. Enough to live anywhere he pleases."
"I see it all," said Eveley ominously. "You won"t be happy with him, and he won"t be happy with you, but you are all putting up with it because it is your--duty."
"Yes, that is it, of course."
Eveley poured herself another cup of coffee and drank it rapidly, without cream, and only one lump of sugar. "I am upset," she said at last. "This has simply shattered the day for me. Excuse me, you"ll have to hurry, I only have five minutes left. I haven"t explained my belief and principles to you--you being young and newly married and needing all the illusions possible--but I do not believe in duty."
"Gracious," gasped the bride. "You don"t?"
"Absolutely not. No human being should do his duty under any conceivable circ.u.mstances. You see, there are two kinds, the pleasurable ones, and the painful ones. Pleasurable duties are done, not because they are duties, but because they are pleasurable. So they do not count. And a painful duty can not be a duty or it would not be painful. My idea is, that there must be a happy adjustment of every necessity, so when a duty is painful, it is the wrong adjustment. You and your father-in-law are giving yourselves pain because it is the wrong adjustment."
"It sounds very clever."
"It is the only beautiful plan of life," said Eveley modestly.
"And then we would not have to live with father at all?"
"Most certainly not."
"It certainly is a glorious theory," said the bride enthusiastically.
"You explain it to Dody, will you? He is positively death on duty, especially when it is painful. He"d do his duty if it killed him and me, burned the house down and started a revolution."
"I have to go now," said Eveley. "Excuse me for rushing you off, but I am late already. I"ll explain it to you another time."
Very skilfully she piloted her caller out the window and down the rustic steps.
"Remember this," she said as they reached the bottom. "As long as duty is painful, it is not a duty and can not be. Now find another adjustment.
That is the end of it." And she started on a quick trot for the corner.
"But father will be here this afternoon just the same," called Mrs.
Severs after her in mournful tones.
Being very businesslike, Eveley made a set of notes about the case on her way down-town.
Liver and cabbage.
Raw onions.
Smelly pipe.
Red-whiskered friend.
Pinochle.
Hates dimples. (I"ll keep my left side turned his way.)
Money enough to live on.
Crazy about Dody--christened Andrew.
Dody believes in duty.