CHAPTER IX
THE LUCK IN THE HOUSE.
Nothing did happen. None of the traditionary usual experiences overtookthe two in the little red house, as November ran out and Decemberstormed in like a lusty viking from northern seas, attended bytremendous winds and early snow.
In the first place, the marriage of Anthony Adriance, Junior, somehowescaped the sensational journals, as a pleasing theme. There were noheadlines announcing: "Son of a millionaire weds a nursemaid." Noreporters discovered the house on the Palisades, to photograph itsdiminutive Gothic front for Sunday specials. Adriance had written aletter of explanation, so far as explanation might be, to his father.That was on the morning of his marriage, and as he had given no address,naturally he had received no answer. There were no reproaches and nopursuit.
Nor was Tony Adriance gnawed by vain regrets. According to every ruleof romance and reason, he should have suffered from at least briefseasons of repining; at least have been twinged by memories of thingsforegone, yet desired. But he felt nothing of the kind. Masculineindependence was aroused in him, and held reign in riotous good spirits.With a boy's triumphant bravado he faced down cold and hard work,delighting in the victory. He rose early and built Elsie's fires beforepermitting her to rise, while she sat up protesting in the four-postedbed as he bullied and loved and mastered her. He walked two miles to andfrom work morning and evening, and drove his big motor-truck eight hoursa day. Moreover, he gained weight on the regime, and the springing stepof a man in training. He never had suspected it, but his whole body hadcraved outdoors and employment of its forces; Nature had built him forwork, not idleness. The atmosphere in which he had been reared was, by atrick of temperament, foreign to him.
"I'm plain vulgarian," he laughed to his wife one morning as he startedto work. "I would rather drive one of my father's trucks and come hometo your pork-chops, than I would to dawdle around his house and dinewith a strong man standing behind my chair to save me the fatigue ofputting sugar in my own coffee. Are you going to have some of thosejolly little apple-fritters with butter and cinnamon on them for supperto-night?"
She made a tantalizing face at him. It was two days before Christmas,and so cold that her lips and cheeks were stung poppy-bright as shestood in the doorway.
"Of course not; now I know that you want them. We will have cold meat.What are you going to give me for my stocking, Anthony?"
"A cold-meat fork," he countered promptly. "How did you know I meant togive you anything?"
"I didn't," she calmly told him. "But I am going to give you something,so I thought it only kind to remind you."
He swung himself easily over the railing and smothered her in an embracemade bear-like by his shaggy coat.
"The chauffeur's peerless bride shall not weep," he soothed her. "Forten days her ruby stomacher has been ordered by her devoted husband.Now let your Romeo depart, or his pay will get docked next Saturday."
She lingered in his arms an instant, her shining dark hair pressedagainst the rough darkness of his cheap fur coat.
"Anthony, don't they ever notice your name, down there? Didn't they everask about it?"
"Surely! The first day I went in, the superintendent asked if I wererelated to Mr. Adriance. I told him yes, a poor relation. True, isn'tit? He was satisfied, anyhow. They call me Andy, down there."
"Andy!" she essayed experimentally. "Andy! It goes pretty well."
They laughed together, then he gently pushed her toward the door.
"Go in," he bade, with his commanding manner; the manner Elsie hadtaught him. "You will take a royal cold out here, and then what should Ido for my meals? I have to eat if I am to labor; besides, I like myfood. What did you call those cakes we had this morning?"
"'_Belle cala, tout chaud!_'" she intoned the soft street-cry of oldNew Orleans' breakfast hours, her voice catching the quaint, enticinginflections of those dark-skinned vendors who once loitered their sunnyrounds freighted with fragrant baskets. "Some day I will show you what Icall a city, sir; if you'll take me?"
"I'll take you anywhere, but I'll not let you go as far as the nextcorner. Now, go in-doors, and good-bye."
She obeyed him so far as to draw back into the warm doorway. There,sheltered, she stayed to watch him swinging down the hill through thegray winter morning. It was nearly seven o'clock, but the sun had notyet warmed or gilded the atmosphere. Bleakness reigned, except in thehearts of the man and woman.
They had been married two months. Elsie Adriance slowly closed the doorand turned to the uncleared breakfast table. But presently she left thedishes she had begun to assemble, and walked to one of the rear windows.There she leaned, gazing where Anthony never gazed: toward thegray-and-white stateliness of New York, across the ice-dotted river. Shecontemplated the city, not with defiance or challenge, but with thesteady-eyed gravity, of one measuring an enemy.
Two months, and the victory was still with her! Yet, she warned herself,surely some day New York would call. She never quite could forget that.She herself was not unlike a city preparing for defence, feverishlygrasping at every stone to build her ramparts. How she envied LucilleMasterson her beauty, the elder Adriance his wealth, since thosepossessions might have bound Anthony closer to her! She recalled Mrs.Masterson's exquisite costumes, colored like flowers and as delightfulto the touch; the costly perfumes that made all her belongings fragrant;the studied coquetry that kept her like Cleopatra, never customary orstale. To oppose all this, Anthony's wife had only--her hearth. For shenever would keep her husband against his will; Elsie Adriance neverwould claim as a right what she had held as a gift.
The kitten, a black-and-white midget suggestive of a Coles-Phillipsdrawing, rubbed insistently against the girl's foot. She picked up theliving toy and nestled its furry warmth beneath her chin, as she turnedin quest of milk. She thrust forebodings from her mind with resolutewill. It was too soon to think of these things; Anthony loved her,Anthony was content.
She had no conception of how fervently glad Anthony was to be rid ofharassing thoughts and complications, or how gratefully the luxury ofpeace enfolded him and dwarfed the mere physical luxuries of idlenessand lavish expenditure. Nor, being a woman, did she sufficiently valuehis pride in the possessions he had bought with his own labor. TonyAdriance never had noticed the table service in his father's house; hehad been known to overturn a whole tray of translucent coffee-cups setin lace-fine silver work, without a second glance at the destruction.But he knew every one of the cheap, heavy dishes he and Elsie had addedto their equipment on Saturday evening shopping orgies at afive-and-ten-cent store. Knew, and admired them! When Elsie would callfrom her "kitchen corner;" "Bring me the Niagara platter, honey," hecould locate that ceramic atrocity at a glance. And when he let fall theWhistler bread-plate--it had a nocturnal, black-lined landscape effectin its centre--he was truly grieved. Indeed, it was he who selectedtheir china, Elsie's taste being inclined toward a simplicity he refusedas monotonous. He never had realized the pleasure of purchasing until hewent shopping with his wife, chose with her, overruled her or indulgedher in some fancy, then drew out his newly-received wage and paid,magnificent.
He could not have explained his emotions to Elsie. But his candiddelight in those expeditions came to her memory, as she poured thekitten's milk into a saucer enamelled with blue forget-me-nots. Shelifted her head and again glanced toward the distant city; but this timeshe smiled with certain triumph. He was her husband; better still, hewas as eagerly her playmate as any lonely boy who first finds a chum.She knew Lucille Masterson did not possess the art of comradeship amongher talents; it was an art too unselfish.
"When he begins to tire of just playing this way," shehalf-unconsciously addressed the kitten, "we will find something else.There will always be something for us to think of, together. It willcome when it is needed. Perhaps----"
Arrested, her breath failed speech. It was as if her own words hadthrown open a door before which she faltered, her eyes sun-dazzled, yetglimpsing a wide horizon.
Later in the day a boy brought wreaths and sprays of holly to the door.Elsie bought recklessly, so Adriance came home that night to a houseYule-gay with scarlet and green, spicy with the cinnamon fragrance ofthe apple-fritters, and holding a mistress who showed him a Christmasface of merry content.
"I could not wait two days," she explained to him. "We'll begin now andwork up to it gradually."
But after all, Christmas morning came as a surprise, and achieved afinal defeat of doubts and forebodings that drove them out of sight formany a day. For, kissing his wife awake at dawn, Anthony made his giftfirst, forestalling hers.
"You never had an engagement ring," he reminded her. "I'll have to makea tremendous record as a husband to live down my blunders as a fiance!Here, let me put it on for you. What clever dimples you've got in yourfingers! I noticed them our first night here, remember?"
She frankly cried in her great surprise and passionate joy in histhought of her. It really was a spectacular ring, and glittered bravelyin the early light; an oval of dark-red stones like a shield set aboveher wedding ring.
"They're only garnets," he stilled her protest of extravagance. "Butthey are the color of rubies; and the promise of them. Don't--pleasedon't! Come, what have you got for me? Give it up."
The diversion succeeded. Laughing before her eyes were dry, sheanswered:
"He is in the wood-box. I had to keep him in the house where it waswarm, and I was so afraid you would hear him and spoil the surprise. Buthe was as good as possible; he never said one word. Open the lid,dear."
"He?" echoed her husband. "Him?"
The wood-box yielded him; a small, jovial, bandy-legged puppy.
"He is _almost_ a Boston bull," Elsie explained conscientiously. "If hehad been quite one, I couldn't have afforded to buy him. But he is alove. Anthony, he is the watch-dog, you know."
Finding both faces within reach, as he hung over Anthony's arm, thepuppy licked them with fond impartiality.
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