Part 5

"Then--that!"

"Eighty-five cents."

"But for that little room, Tony----"

"Twenty-five cents a roll is all we can allow," insisted Anthony firmly. "And less than that everywhere else."

The salesman was very obliging, and showed the best things possible for the money. It was impossible to resist the appeal in the eyes of this critical but restricted young buyer.

"There, that will do, I think," said Juliet at length, with a long breath. "The green for the living-room and for the bit of a hall--No, no, Tony; I've just thought! You must take away that little partition and let the stairs go up out of the living-room. That will improve the apparent size of things wonderfully."

"All right," agreed Anthony obediently.

"Then we'll put that rich red in the dining-room. For upstairs there is the tiny rose pattern, and the Delft blue, and that little pale yellow and white stripe. In the kitchen we'll have the tile pattern. We won't have a border anywhere--the rooms are too low; just those simplest mouldings, and the ivory white on the ceilings. The woodwork must all be white. There now, that's settled. Next come the floors."

There could be no doubt that Juliet was becoming interested in her task. Though the July heat was intense she led the way with rapid steps to the place where she meant to select her rugs. Here the three spent a trying two hours. It was hard to please Miss Marcy with Japanese jute rugs, satisfactory in colouring though many of them were, when she longed to buy Persian pieces of distinction. If Juliet had a special weakness it was for choice antique rugs.

She cornered Anthony at last, while Mrs. Dingley and the salesman were politely but unequivocally disputing over the quality of a certain piece of Chinese weaving.

"Tony," she begged, "please let me get that one dear Turkish square for the living-room. It will give character to the whole room, and the colours are perfectly exquisite. I simply can't get one of those cheap things to go in front of that beautiful old fireplace. Imagine the firelight on that square; it would make you want to spend your evenings at home. Please!"

"Do you imagine that I shall ever want to spend them anywhere else?" asked Tony softly, looking down into her appealing face. "Why, chum, I'd like to get that Tabriz you admire so much, if it would please you, in spite of the fact that we should have to pull the whole house up forty notches to match it. But even the Turkish square is out of the question."

"But, Tony"--Juliet was whispering now with her head a little bent and her eyes on the lapel of his coat--"won't you let me do it as my--my contribution? I'd like to put something of my own into your house."

"You dear little girl," Anthony answered--and possibly for her own peace of mind it was fortunate that Miss Langham, of California, could not see the look with which he regarded Miss Marcy, of Massachusetts--"I'm sure you would. And you are putting into it just what is priceless to me--your individuality and your perfect taste. But I can't let even you help furnish that house. She--must take what I--and only I--can give her."

"You're perfectly ridiculous," murmured Juliet, turning away with an expression of deep displeasure. "As if she wouldn't bring all sorts of elegant stuff with her, and make your cheap things look insignificant."

"I don't think she will," returned Anthony with conviction. "She'll bring nothing out of keeping with the house."

"I thought you told me she was of a wealthy family."

"She is. But if she marries me she leaves all that behind. I'll have no wife on any other basis."

"Well--for a son of the Robesons of Kentucky you are absolutely the most absurd boy anybody ever heard of," declared the girl hotly under her breath. Then she walked over and ordered a certain inexpensive rug for the living-room with the air of a princess and the cheeks of a poppy.

IV.--THE COST OF FROCKS

It may have been that Miss Marcy was piqued into trying to see how little she could spend, but certain it was that from the time she left the carpet shop she begged for no exceptions to Mr. Robeson's rule of strict economy. She selected simple, delicate muslins for the windows, one and all, without a glance at finer draperies; bought denims and printed stuffs as if she had never heard of costlier upholsteries; and turned away from seductive pieces of Turkish and Indian embroideries offered for her inspection with a demure, "No, I don't care to look at those now," which more than once brought a covert smile to Anthony's lips and a twinkle to the eyes of the salesman. It was so very evident that the fair buyer did not pass them by for lack of interest.

Altogether, it was an interesting week these three people spent--for a week it took. Anthony began to protest after the first two days, and said he could not ask so much of his friends. But Juliet would not be hindered from taking infinite pains, and Mrs. Dingley good humouredly lent the two her chaperonage and her occasional counsel, such as only the gray-haired matron of long housewifely experience can furnish.

The selection of the furniture took perhaps the most time, and was the hardest, because of the difficulty of finding good styles in keeping with the limited purse. Anthony possessed a number of good pieces of antique character, but beyond these everything was to be purchased. Juliet turned in despair from one shop after another, and when it came to the fitting of the dining-room she grew distinctly indignant.

"It's a perfect shame," she said, "that they can't offer really good designs in the cheap things. Did you ever see anything so hideous? Tony, if I were you I'd rather eat my breakfast off one of those white kitchen tables--or----"

She broke off suddenly, rushed away down the long room to a group of chastely elegant dining-room furniture and came back after a little with a face of great eagerness to drag her companions away with her. She took them to survey a set of the costliest of all.

"Have you gone crazy?" Anthony inquired.

"Not at all. Tony, just study that table. It's massive, but it's simple--simple as beauty always is. Look at those perfectly straight legs--what clever cabinet maker couldn't copy that in--in ash, Tony? Then there are stains--I've heard of them--that rub into wood and then finish in some way so it's smooth and satiny. You could do that--I'm sure you could. Then you'd get the lovely big top you want. And the chairs--do you see the plain, solid-looking things? I know they could be made this way. Then the dining-room would be simply dear!"

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