She was just herself in a pretty little morning house gown of blue gingham. She was minus the dust-cap and the ruffled apron, but she had a dab of flour on the left cheek, and a smutch of crock on her forehead. She had, too, a cut finger on her right hand, and a burned thumb on her left. But she was Billy--and being Billy, she advanced with a bright smile and held out a cordial hand--not even wincing when the cut finger came under Calderwell's hearty clasp.
``I'm glad to see you,'' she welcomed him.
``You'll excuse my not appearing sooner, I'm sure, for--didn't Bertram tell you?--I'm playing Bridget to-night. But dinner is ready now, and we'll go down, please,'' she smiled, as she laid a light hand on her guest's arm.
Behind her, Bertram, remembering the scene in the kitchen, stared in sheer amazement. Bertram, it might be mentioned again, had been married six months, not six years.
What Billy had intended to serve for a ``simple dinner'' that night was: grapefruit with cherries, oyster stew, boiled halibut with egg sauce, chicken pie, squash, onions, and potatoes, peach fritters, a ``lettuce and stuff'' salad, and some new pie or pudding. What she did serve was: grapefruit (without the cherries), cold roast lamb, potatoes (a mush of sogginess), tomatoes (canned, and slightly burned), corn (canned, and very much burned), lettuce (plain); and for dessert, preserved peaches and cake (the latter rather dry and stale). Such was Billy's dinner.
The grapefruit everybody ate. The cold lamb too, met with a hearty reception, especially after the potatoes, corn, and tomatoes were served--and tasted. Outwardly, through it all, Billy was gayety itself. Inwardly she was burning up with anger and mortification. And because she was all this, there was, apparently, no limit to her laughter and sparkling repartee as she talked with Calderwell, her guest--the guest who, according to her original plans, was to be shown how happy she and Bertram were, what a good wife she made, and how devoted and _satisfied_ Bertram was in his home.
William, picking at his dinner--as only a hungry man can pick at a dinner that is uneatable--watched Billy with a puzzled, uneasy frown. Bertram, choking over the few mouthfuls he ate, marked his wife's animated face and Calderwell's absorbed attention, and settled into gloomy silence.
But it could not continue forever. The preserved peaches were eaten at last, and the stale cake left. (Billy had forgotten the coffee--which was just as well, perhaps.) Then the four trailed up-stairs to the drawing-room.
At nine o'clock an anxious Eliza and a remorseful, apologetic Pete came home and descended to the horror the once orderly kitchen and dining-room had become. At ten, Calderwell, with very evident reluctance, tore himself away from Billy's gay badinage, and said good night. At two minutes past ten, an exhausted, nerve-racked Billy was trying to cry on the shoulders of both Uncle William and Bertram at once.
``There, there, child, don't! It went off all right,'' patted Uncle William.
``Billy, darling,'' pleaded Bertram, ``please don't cry so! As if I'd ever let you step foot in that kitchen again!''
At this Billy raised a tear-wet face, aflame with indignant determination.
``As if I'd ever let you keep me _from_ it, Bertram Henshaw, after this!'' she contested. ``I'm not going to do another thing in all my life but _cook!_ When I think of the stuff we had to eat, after all the time I took to get it, I'm simply crazy!
Do you think I'd run the risk of such a thing as this ever happening again?''
