They pulled a number of sofa cushions together and sat down on the
floor side by side, Landry snapping the hooks in place where Laura
had gathered the pleats. Inevitably his hands touched hers, and
their heads drew close together. Page and Mrs. Wessels were
unpacking linen in the upstairs hall. The cook and hired man raised
a great noise of clanking stove lids and grates as they wrestled
with the range in the kitchen.

"Well," said Landry, "you are going to have a pretty home." He was
meditating a phrase of which he purposed delivering himself when
opportunity afforded. It had to do with Laura's eyes, and her
ability of understanding him. She understood him; she was to know
that he thought so, that it was of immense importance to him. It was
thus he conceived of the manner of love making. The evening before
that palavering artist seemed to have managed to monopolise her
about all of the time. Now it was his turn, and this day of
household affairs, of little domestic commotions, appeared to him to
be infinitely more desirous than the pomp and formality of evening
dress and opera boxes. This morning the relations between himself
and Laura seemed charming, intimate, unconventional, and full of
opportunities. Never had she appeared prettier to him. She wore a
little pink flannel dressing-sack with full sleeves, and her hair,
carelessly twisted into great piles, was in a beautiful disarray,
curling about her cheeks and ears. "I didn't see anything of you at
all last night," he grumbled.

"Well, you didn't try."

"Oh, it was the Other Fellow's turn," he went on. "Say," he added,
"how often are you going to let me come to see you when you get