"It was at the Grant."
"I did not see Eileen, but of course I was busy. Was she alone? We had a nice luncheon--grilled pork chops and country gravy. The gravy was good--no lumps. It made me think of yours."
"My gravy is not always lumpy," she said with a frown. "It just happened that way the last two times because I was called to the telephone while I was making it."
"Oh, sure, that"s all right."
He carefully adjusted her chair at the table, and drew his own close beside it, pulling his plate and silverware half-way around the table from where Eveley had placed them.
"You look sweeter than ever, to-night, Eve. But I hope the gravy is not lumpy."
"She wore a black dress and white gloves, and a black hat."
"Eileen did? Was it a new dress?"
"No, the one with you."
"Sure enough, I believe she did. A georgette dress, beaded in front.
Quite pretty. But there was a rip in her glove. She showed it to me herself. She said she did it on the car, but it looked like an old rip to me."
"And after luncheon you went away in her car, didn"t you?"
"Her uncle"s car. Just for a short run through the park, and then she dropped me at the office. Quite a pleasant woman. She was so polite to me, and treated me with such gentle deference. It was quite a change. It made me think of you."
Eveley put down her fork. "Who was it?"
"Bartlett"s niece from San Francisco. Visiting here. He had promised to take her for luncheon, but at the last minute Graves came in and they were busy, so he turned her over to me."
"I do not see why you are always the one to take their nieces and daughters out for luncheon. This is the fourth time in two months. I believe you do it on purpose. Why should they always pick on you?"
"Partly because of my beauty, perhaps, and my charming manners as well as my generally winsome demeanor in the presence of ladies. I suppose Eileen also informed you that this niece is Mrs. Harmon Delavan, and has three children in addition to a husband."
"Oh, Nolan, how you do burble along. I didn"t bring you here to discuss Bartlett"s relatives. Now get down to business. How can we adjust the honeymooners and the father-in-law--though honestly I think he is great fun myself, and would a whole lot rather live with him than with Dody.
Only he does not fit in with the honeymoon scheme of life."
"Well," said Nolan dreamily, "why don"t you marry him, and bring him up here?"
"Oh, Nolan, you are clever. I never thought of that."
At the evident delight in her voice, Nolan stared.
"Not to me, goosey, he would never consent, for I have a dimple and he does not approve of them. So far I have kept it on the off side, and he has not noticed, but I couldn"t always turn the left side to a husband, could I?"
"Well, then--"
"Marry him to somebody else, of course. I can"t just decide who--but there will be some one. You are such a help, Nolan. Now let"s not bother with the duties of our neighbors, but have a good time. To-morrow I shall find him a wife." Then she leaned toward Nolan, refilling his cup, and said gurglingly, "Was he working awfully hard at the stupid old office?"
"Eveley, just one thing, while we are on our duties," he said, catching her hand. "You have made one exception, always, but you have never told me what it is. And it is so unlike you to except anything when you get started. What is the one duty that is justified and necessary?"
Eveley promptly pulled her hand away. "That," she said, "is purely personal. It will not do any one any good to talk about it. So it is all sealed up on the inside."
"And I shall never know what your one duty in life is?" he asked, with mock pleading, but real curiosity.
"It may hit you sometime--harder than anybody else," she said, laughing.
"But in the meantime let"s talk of other things."
As soon as Mr. Severs had started to work the next morning, without the tender farewells, for the presence of Father-in-law placed an instinctive veto on such demonstrations--Eveley kicked briskly on the floor as a summons, and Mrs. Severs answered.
"Eveley?" she called up to the ceiling.
And Eveley shouted down to the floor of her room, "Come up--I"ve got it."
At that Mrs. Severs fairly flew up the stairs.
Eveley caught her on the landing, and whirled her around the room in a triumphant dance, stopping at last so abruptly that Mrs. Severs was almost precipitated to the floor.
"Now listen. I"ve got it. The proper adjustment, that will make you all happy and prove my theory."
"Yes, yes, yes," chanted Mrs. Severs ecstatically.
"He must get married."
"But--"
"Now don"t interrupt. Let me finish. Of course he has no notion of such a thing, but leave it to me. We shall marry him off before he knows it. We must find the woman first. Out at Chula Vista there are a lot of beautiful elderly ladies in the Home who are all alone and would be only too glad to have a cozy home and a--a--pleasant husband and--all that. So we"ll go out on Sat.u.r.day afternoon and look them over and pick out a good one. Then I"ll invite her to visit me for a week, and you and I will both be busy so Father-in-law will have to entertain her, and she"ll cut out old Whiskers in no time at all."
Eveley flung out her hands jubilantly.
Mrs. Severs showed no enthusiasm. "That is what I wanted to tell you. He can"t. He is already married."
Eveley dropped into a chair. "Married!" she stammered. "You told me Dody"s mother was dead."
"She is, of course. But what I did not tell you is this. Three years ago while Dody was in France, father must have sort of lost his mind or something, for without a minute"s warning, he up and married somebody--a woman, of course. When Dody got home from the war she was not there, and when he asked about her, father just sort of laughed and looked sheepish, and said, "Oh, she"s gone on a visit." "Where to?" Dody asked. "Oh, somewhere around," said father. "Is she coming back?" asked Dody. "Holy Mackinaw, I hope not," said father, and that is the last we ever heard of her. But of course he is still married."
It was a hard blow, but Eveley rallied at last, though slowly. "Don"t worry," she said monotonously. "There is another adjustment. Just keep happy--and give me time."
CHAPTER VIII
SHE MEETS A DEMONSTRATOR
"You"ve simply got to sneak off on some pretext or another, and meet me at the Doric agency at three o"clock for a demonstration. They say it is perfectly wonderful--why, it hardly takes a look of gas to go a thousand miles, and its tires are literally cast iron."
This was her summons by telephone. And Nolan, determined not to desert trusting little Eveley to the tender mercies of motor sharks, went to the Middle Member, whose position he confidently expected one day to possess, and announced that important business of a personal nature required his presence that afternoon. And because Nolan never abused privileges--or if he did was never detected in the act--and because his firm was composed of human beings and not the granite machines common to fiction, Nolan encountered no difficulty.
And Eveley went to her own employer, and smiling seductively upon him, said vaguely that some awfully important and unexpected things had come up, and could she please get off at three, if she would work particularly hard in the meantime to make up?