Part 41

Judith and Wayne Carey, walking along silent streets in the early dawn of the day after Christmas on their way to take their train home, had little to say. Only once Judith ventured an observation to her heavy-eyed companion:

"Surely, such a scene as you went through last night must diminish a trifle that envy you are always possessed with, when you're at that house."

But Wayne, staring up at the wintry sky, answered, more roughly than his wife had ever heard him speak: "No--God knows I envy them even at a time like this!"

XXIII.--TWO NOT OF A KIND

"Yes, they are very pleasant rooms," Juliet admitted, with the air of one endeavouring to be polite. She sat upon a many-hued divan, and glanced from the blue-and-yellow wall-paper to the green velvet chairs, the dull-red carpet and the stiff "lace" curtains. "You get the afternoon sun, and the view opposite isn't bad. The vestibule seemed to be well kept, and I rang only three times before I made you hear."

"The janitor promised to fix that bell," said Judith hastily. "Oh, I know the colour combinations are dreadful, but one can't help that in rented rooms. Of course our things look badly with the ones that belong here. But as soon as we can we are going to move into a still better place."

"Going to keep house?"

"No-o, not just yet." Judith hesitated. "You seem to think there's nothing in the world to do but to keep house."

"I'm sure of it."

"I can't see why. A girl doesn't need to assume all the cares of life the minute she marries. Why can't she keep young and fresh for a while?"

Juliet glanced toward a mirror opposite. "How old and haggard I must be looking," she observed, with--it must be confessed--a touch of complacency. The woman who could have seen that image reflected as her own without complacency must have been indifferent, indeed.

"Of course, you manage it somehow--I suppose because Anthony takes such care of you. But you wait till five years more have gone over your head, and see if you're not tired of it."

"If I'm as tired of it as you are--" began Juliet, and stopped. "But seriously, Judith, is it nothing to you to please Wayne?"

"Why, of course." Judith flushed. "But Wayne is satisfied."

"Are you sure of it?"

"Certainly. Oh, sometimes, when we go to see you, and you make things so pleasant with your big fire and your good things to eat, he gets a spasm of wishing we were by ourselves, but----"

Juliet shook her head. "Wayne doesn't say a word," she said, "and he's as devoted to you as a man can be. But, Judith, if I know the symptoms, that husband of yours is starving for a home, and--do I dare say it?"

Judith was staring out of the window at the ugly walls opposite. It was her bedroom window, and the opposite walls were not six feet away.

"I suppose you dare say anything," she answered, looking as if she were about to cry. "I'm sure I envy you, you're so supremely contented. I don't think I was made to care for children."

"That might come," said Juliet softly. "I'm sure it would, Judith. As for Wayne, if you could see the look on his face I've surprised there more than once, when he had little Anthony, and he thought nobody noticed, it would make your heart ache, dear. Don't deny him--or yourself--the best thing that can happen to either of you. At least, don't deny it for lack of a home. I'm sure I can't imagine Tony, Junior, in these rooms of yours. They don't look," she explained, smiling, "exactly babyish."

She rose to go. She looked so young and fair and sweet as she spoke her gentle homily that Judith, half doubting, half believing, admitted to herself that of one thing there could be no question: Mrs. Anthony Robeson envied nobody upon the face of the earth.

The visits of the Robesons to the various apartments which were in rotation occupied by the Careys were few. Somehow it seemed much easier and simpler for the pair who had no children, and no housekeeping to hamper them, to run out into the suburbs than for their friends to get into town. So the Careys came with ever increasing frequency, always warmly welcomed, and enjoyed the hours within the little house so thoroughly that in time the influence of the content they saw so often began to have its inevitable effect.

"I've great news for you," said Anthony, coming home one March day, when little Tony was nearing his second birthday. "It's about the Careys. Guess."

"They are going to housekeeping."

"How did you know?"

"I didn't know, but Judith told me weeks ago she supposed she should have to come to it. Have they found a house?"

"Carey thinks he has. Judith doesn't like the place, for about fifty good and sufficient reasons--to her. He's trying to persuade her. He has an option on it for ten days. He wants us to come out and look at it with them."

"Where is it?"