Part 3

"Lovely. What eyes! And what a dear mouth!"

"You're right."

"She looks clever, too."

"She is."

"How tall is she?"

"About up to my shoulder."

"She's little, then."

"Well, I don't know," objected Anthony, surveying his own stalwart length of limb. "A girl doesn't have to be a dwarf not to be on a level with me. I should say she must be somewhere near your height."

"What a magnificent dresser!"

"Is she? She never irritates one with the fact."

"Oh, but I can see. And she's going to marry you. Tony, what can you give her?"

"A little box of a house, one maidservant, an occasional trip into town, four new frocks a year--moderate ones, you know, in keeping with her circumstances--and my name," replied Anthony composedly.

"You won't let her live in town, then?"

"Let her! Good heavens, what sort of a place could I give her in town on my salary? Now, in the very rural suburb I've picked out she can live in the greatest comfort, and we can have a real home--something I haven't had since Dad died and the old home and the money and all the rest of it went."

His face was grave now, and he was staring down into the water as if he saw there both what he had lost and what he hoped to gain.

"Yes," said Juliet sympathetically, though she did not know how to imagine the girl whose photograph she held in the surroundings Anthony suggested. Presently she went on in her gentlest tone: "I'm not saying that the name isn't a proud one to offer her, Tony--and if she is willing to share your altered fortunes I've no doubt she will be happy. Along with your name you'll give her a heart worth having."

"Thank you," said Anthony without looking up.

Miss Marcy coloured slightly, and hastened to supplement this speech with another.

"The question is--since the home is to be hers--why not let her furnish it? Her tastes and mine might not agree. Besides----"

"Well----"

"Why--you know, Tony," explained Juliet in some confusion, "I shouldn't know how to be economical."

"I'm aware that you haven't been brought up on the most economical basis," Anthony acknowledged frankly. "But I'll take care of my funds, no matter how extravagant you are inclined to be. If I should hand you five dollars and say, 'Buy a dining-table,' you could do it, couldn't you? You couldn't satisfy your ideals, of course, but you could give me the benefit of your discriminating choice within the five-dollar limit."

Juliet laughed, but in her eyes there grew nevertheless a look of doubt. "Tony," she demanded, "how much have you to spend on the furnishing of that house?"

"Just five hundred dollars," said Anthony concisely. "And that must cover the repairing and painting of the outside. Really, Juliet, haven't I done fairly well to save up that and the cost of the house and lot--for a fellow who till five years ago never did a thing for himself and never expected to need to? Yes, I know--the piano in your music-room cost twice that, and so did the horses you drive, and a very few of your pretty gowns would swallow another five. But Mrs. Anthony Robeson will have to chasten her ideas a trifle. Do you know, Juliet--I think she will--for love of me?"

He was smiling at his own audacious confidence. Juliet attempted no reply to this very unanswerable statement. She studied the photograph in silence, and he lay watching her. In her blue-and-white boating suit she was a pleasant object to look at.

"Will you help me?" he asked again at length. "I'm more anxious than I can tell you to have everything ready."

"I shouldn't like to fail you, Tony, since you really wish it, though I'm very sure you'll find me a poor adviser. But you haven't been a brother to me since the mud-pie days for nothing, and if I can help you with suggestions as to colour and style I'll be glad to. Though I shall all the while be trying to live up to this photograph, and that will be a little hard on the five-dollar-dining-table scale."

"You've only to look out that everything is in good taste," said Anthony quietly, "and that you can't help doing. My wife will thank you, and the new home will be sweet to her because of you. It surely will to me."