NE of the duties frequently devolving upon Dolliver was the entertainment of important out-of-town customers of the firm employing him, and for a week he and Marjorie had been assiduously devoting themselves to a rich and ponderous ironmonger named Titus, who was thriftily employing a part of his wedding journey in the conduct of certain business negotiations in New York, and permitting the manufacturers whose wares he ordered to bear a large part of the expense of the metropolitan honeymoon upon which his middle-aged bride had set her heart.
When, therefore, after a series of motor trips and shopping expeditions, luncheons, dinners, and visits to the theater, in which the Dollivers had faithfully played their part as hosts, Mrs. Titus developed one day a neuralgic headache, and telephoned at the last moment that she could not go out with them that afternoon Page ejaculated, "Thank the Lord!" and notified the head of the firm that a box in the grand-stand at the aviation-field was at his disposal.
"Use it yourself, Dolliver," was the reply. "Take your wife and some friends and have a good time. You've earned it."
The Dollivers welcomed the opportunity thus offered, for an unusually spectacular aviation meet was in progress, and immediately began discussing which of their more congenial friends they should invite to join them for the afternoon and a little dinner at Rousseau's, a quaint and delightful inn on Long Island, of which they had heard much and where they had long intended to dine. It proved to be too late to get any one to go with them, however, as every one to whom they telephoned either had gone out or had other engagements, and in the end they set forth without guests.
"Oh, I'm a selfish sinner, but I'm almost glad nobody could come with us," confessed Marjorie, as they crossed Queensborough Bridge and left the city behind. "Think of the blessedness of a whole long afternoon out of doors and a delicious, cozy dinner at Rousseau's, all by our lones! It's almost worth the price, isn't it?"
"Poor child, you're tired out," commiserated Page. "This Titus episode has been hard on you."
"Oh no, it hasn't—not really," she instantly defended. "I've realized that it was very important to you that they should be well amused, so it has interested me to help a little."
"You helped a lot," interpolated her husband, whereat she smiled at him brightly, continuing:
"But though I dare say Mr. Titus is a good business man—"
"He isn't," again interrupted Page. "He's a hold-over. He hates his competitors with a positively medieval fervor, and would rather lose a hundred dollars himself than see one of them make fifty. He's probably heard of the twentieth century, but he thinks it's only an idle rumor, with which he has nothing to do."
"Well, anyway, conversationally he's not of my species," she resumed. "Talking to those two for any length of time is like trying to drive a hippopotamus and a—a salt-mackerel, tandem. He's huge and soggy and wallowy, and when he moves at all he wants the whole road; and she just soaks and soaks, and never stirs a fin. And you're afraid all the time that he'll forget and step on her and make her flatter than she is now. Oh, Page dear, it's good to get off alone with you and talk nonsense!" She tucked a hand into his coat pocket, where he captured it.
"I heard you talking to her last night about the Home League," he suggested.
"Page, is there anything on earth I haven't talked to that woman about?" she demanded. "While you men have been talking shop I've tried her on every subject I ever heard of, hoping to find something she'd pick up and carry on herself a little way. I discoursed alluringly upon needlework, housekeeping, cooking, servants, children, dogs, cats, parrots, poultry, and foreign missions, and when these failed I baited my hooks with travel, history, literature, music, and art. Then I raked from my buried past all I could remember about botany, astronomy, chemistry, and birdlore; and when I had exhausted myself in that direction I launched out on the ologies—geology, genealogy, archaeology, astrology—and I don't know a thing in the world about any of them! I tried feminism, suffrage, civics, eugenics, and industrial education; and when there was nothing else left I told her the story of my life, winding up with my latest enthusiasm, the Home League.
"What did she say to that?" he asked, chuckling.
"What did she say?" echoed Marjorie. "What did she ever say to anything?"
"'How vurry ihtrusting! Henry, isn't that intrusting?'" he dryly quoted, and then they both laughed.