The Indifference of Juliet Part 13

"I've a strong conviction that one can't be happy without being busy. Now that I can't keep up my athletic sports I should become a pale hypochondriac without these housewifely affairs to employ me. I don't like to embroider. I can't paint china. I'm not a musician. I somehow don't care to begin to devote myself to clubs in town. I love my books and the great outdoors--and plenty of action."

"You're a strange girl," was Judith's verdict, getting languidly out of the hammock, an hour later, after an animated discussion with her friend on various matters touching on the lives of both. "Either you're a remarkable actress or you're as contented as you seem to be. I wish I had your enthusiasm. Everything bores me--Look at this frock, after lying in a hammock! Isn't white linen the prettiest thing when you put it on and the most used up when you take it off, of any fabric known to the shops?"

"It is, indeed. But if anybody can afford to wear it it's you, who never sit recklessly about on banks and fences, but keep cool and correct and stately and----"

"--discontented. I admit I've talked like a fractious child all day. But I've had a good time and want to come oftener than I have. May I?"

"Of course you may. Must you go? I'll keep you to dinner and send for Wayne."

"You're an angel, but I've an engagement for five o'clock, and there's the Reardons' this evening. You won't forget that? You and Anthony will be sure to come?"

"I'll not promise absolutely, but I'll see. Mrs. Reardon was so kind as to leave it open. It's an informal affair, I believe?"

"Informal, but very gorgeous, just the same. She wouldn't give anybody but you such an elastic invitation as that, and you should appreciate her eagerness to get you," declared Judith, who cared very much from whom her invitations came and could never understand her friend's careless att.i.tude toward the most impressive of them.

Juliet watched her guest go down the street, and waved an affectionate hand at her as Judith looked back from her seat in the trolley car. "Poor old Judy," she said to herself. "How glad you are you're not I!--And how very, very glad I am I'm not you!"

An observation, it must be admitted, essentially feminine. No man is ever heard to felicitate himself upon the fact that he is not some other man.

XV.--ANTHONY PLAYS MAID

After dinner that night, Juliet, having once more put things in order and slipped off the big pinafore which had kept her spotless, joined her husband in the garden up and down which he was comfortably pacing, hands in pockets, pipe in mouth.

"Jolly spot, isn't it? Come and perambulate," he suggested.

"Just for a minute. Tony, are we going to the Reardons?"

He stood still and considered. "I don't know. Are we? Did you accept?"

"On condition that you felt like it. I represented you as coming home decidedly f.a.gged these hot nights and not always caring to stir."

"Wise schemer! I don't mind the aspersion on my physical being. She urged, I suppose?"

"She did. I don't know why."

"I do." Anthony smiled down at his wife. "Everybody is a bit curious about us these days. Your position, you see, is considered very extraordinary."

"Nonsense, Tony. Shall we go?"

"Possibly we'd better, though it racks my soul to think of dressing. The less I wear my festive garments the less I want to. For that very reason, suppose we discipline ourselves and go. Do you mind?"

"Not at all. We'll have to dress at once, for it's nearly eight now, and by the time we have caught a train and got to Hollyhurst----"

"To be sure. Here goes, then."

Half an hour later Anthony, wrestling with a refractory cuff b.u.t.ton, looked up to see his wife at his elbow. She was very nearly a vision of elegance and beauty; the lacking essential was explained to him by a voice very much out of breath and a trifle petulant:

"If you care anything for me, Tony, stop everything and hook me up. I'm all mixed up, and I can't reach, and I'm sure I've torn that little lace frill at the back."

"All right. Where do I begin?"

"Under my left arm, I think--I can't possibly see."

"Neither can I." He was poking about under the lifted arm, among folds of filmy stuff. "Here we are--no, we aren't. Does this top hook go in this little pocket on the other side?"

"I suppose so--can't you tell whether it does by the look?"

"It seems a bit blind to me," murmured Anthony, struggling.

"It's meant to be blind--it mustn't show when it's fastened."

"It certainly doesn't now. Hold on--don't wriggle. I've got it now. I've found the combination. Three turns to the right, five to the left, clear around once, then--Hullo! I've come out wrong. The thing doesn't track at the bottom."

"You've missed a hook."

"Oh, no. I hung onto 'em all the way down."

"Then you missed an eye. You'll have to unhook it all and begin again."

Anthony obeyed. "I'm glad I don't have to get into my clothes around the corner this way," he commented. "Here you are. We stuck to the schedule this time."

"Wait, dear. You haven't fastened the shoulder. There are ever so many little hooks along there and around the arm hole."

"I should say there were. What's the good of so many?--Where do they begin? Look out--wait a minute--Juliet, if you don't stop twisting around so I never can do it. I can do great, heroic acts, it's the little trials that floor me--There--no!--that doesn't look right."

Juliet ran to the mirror. "It isn't right," she cried. "Look--that corner shouldn't lap over like that. Oh, if I could only reach myself!"

"You can't--I've often tried it. The human anatomy--Stand still, Julie--you're getting nervous."

"If there's one thing that's trying----" murmured Juliet.

"Why do you let your dressmakers build your frocks this way? Why not get into 'em all in front, where you can see what you're doing?--Now I've got it. Isn't that right?"

"Yes. Wait, Tony--here's the girdle. It fastens behind."

Anthony surveyed the incomprehensible affair of silk and velvet ribbon she put into his hands. "Looks like a head-stall to me," he said. Juliet laughed and fitted it about her own waist. Anthony attempted to make it join at the back of the points she held out to him.

"It won't come together," he said.

"Oh, yes, it will. Draw it tight."

"I am drawing it tight. It's smaller than you are. You can't wear it."

Juliet laughed again. Anthony tugged.