"Yes, I'm here," she answered, dimpling at him.
"Not you!" he said."You couldn't be! You've melted away.Let's see."And he slid his parcels down on the cot and lifted her up in the air as if she had been a baby."How can I tell, anyhow?" he laughed out.
"You don't weigh anything, and when a fellow squeezes you he's got to look out what he's doing."He did not seem to "look out" particularly when he caught her to him in a hug into which she appeared charmingly to melt.She made herself part of it, with soft arms which went at once round his neck and held him.
"Say!" he broke forth when he set her down."Do you think I'm not glad to get back?""No, I don't, Tem," she answered, "I know how glad you are by the way I'm glad myself.""You know just everything!" he ejaculated, looking her over, "just every darned thing--God bless you! But don't you melt away, will you?
That's what I'm afraid of.I'll do any old thing on earth if you'll just stay."That was his great joke,--though she knew it was not so great a joke as it seemed,--that he would not believe that she was real, and believed that she might disappear at any moment.They had been married three weeks, and she still knew when she saw him pause to look at her that he would suddenly seize and hold her fast, trying to laugh, sometimes not with entire success.
"Do you know how long it was? Do you know how far away that big place was from everything in the world?" he had said once."And me holding on and gritting my teeth? And not a soul to open my mouth to! The old duke was the only one who understood, anyhow.He'd been there.""I'll stay," she answered now, standing before him as he sat down on the end of the "couch." She put a firm, warm-palmed little hand on each side of his face, and held it between them as she looked deep into his eyes."You look at me, Tem--and see.""I believe it now," he said, "but I shan't in fifteen minutes.""We're both right-down silly," she said, her soft, cosy laugh breaking out."Look round this room and see what we've got to do.Let's begin this minute.Did you get the groceries?"He sprang up and began to go over his packages triumphantly.
"Tea, coffee, sugar, pepper, salt, beefsteak," he called out.
"We can't have beefsteak often," she said, soberly, "if we're going to do it on fifteen a week.""Good Lord, no!" he gave back to her, hilariously."But this is a Fifth Avenue feed.""Let's take them into the kitchen and put them into the cupboard, and untie the pots and pans." She was suddenly quite absorbed and businesslike."We must make the room tidy and tack down the carpet, and then cook the dinner."He followed her and obeyed her like an enraptured boy.The wonder of her was that, despite its unarranged air, the tiny place was already cleared and set for action.She had done it all before she had swept out the undiscovered corners.Everything was near the spot to which it belonged.There was nothing to move or drag out of the way.
"I got it all ready to put straight," she said, "but I wanted you to finish it with me.It wouldn't have seemed right if I'd done it without you.It wouldn't have been as much OURS."Then came active service.She was like a small general commanding an army of one.They put things on shelves; they hung things on hooks;they found places in which things belonged; they set chairs and tables straight; and then, after dusting and polishing them, set them at a more imposing angle; they unrolled the little green carpet and tacked down its corners; and transformed the cot into a "couch" by covering it with what Tracy's knew as a "throw" and adorning one end of it with cotton-stuffed cushions.They hung little photogravures on the walls and strung up some curtains before the good-sized window, which looked down from an enormous height at the top of four-storied houses, and took in beyond them the river and the shore beyond.Because there was no fireplace Tembarom knocked up a shelf, and, covering it with a scarf (from Tracy's), set up some inoffensive ornaments on it and flanked them with photographs of Jem Temple Barholm, Lady Joan in court dress, Miss Alicia in her prettiest cap, and the great house with its huge terrace and the griffins.