Dan’s clothes were mended, never a rip nor tear nor missing button was in evidence. If he was late for dinner, “It keeps warm so nicely in that jewel of an oven,” or if he ’phoned at the last moment that he would not be home, the telephone operator, June Myers, was forced to report that Lorraine said as sweetly as if she was being asked to a party, “Oh, surely, Dan, I understand—well, have a good time, won’t you?”
“Little mother-drudge” was Ali Baba’s name for her when he and Betsey would argue with Hopeful as to the situation. Hopeful, true to her name, tried to convince herself and every one else that joy reigned in the new house with the iron deer guarding the grass plot, that things were better as they were. But Ali Baba and Betsey gave battle that Thurley was the girl Dan loved and Lorraine was merely making the best of it.
They “went out” as befitted young married people and entertained in turn. But Dan paid no heed to Lorraine’s friends. Perhaps he was conscious of their thoughts. He managed to stay away whenever Lorraine had in “a bunch” and when they attended dancing parties or automobile picnics, he always left the women and drifted with the men to smoke or talk business even when the men would have chosen to play a little.
Dan was determined to keep up the deceit to himself as much as to Lorraine. He gave her all she asked for—but he never thought of a surprise, a reward, a consolation posy when rain prevented a drive or a bruised finger was the result of trying to hammer a nail in straight. None of the tender trifles fell to her lot. And the old, fiery Dan, who was “bound to be hung,” as the village had prophesied, went his way in his own fashion, brooking neither interference nor questioning.
When the new and high-priced talking machine was sent up to the house the day before Christmas, Lorraine had hesitated before she read the titles of the records. She fully expected to see “Sung by Thurley Precore” on the greater share of them. But Dan had chosen with stoic consideration and Thurley’s voice was never recreated to fill their rooms with glorious but unwelcome sound.
Nor did any one mention Thurley to Dan. A few of the old-timers would say when occasion offered, “You got a pretty fine little wife,” and Dan would nod cheerfully and answer,