第14章

"Now," he began, with a long breath, addressing Laura, who was unwrapping the pieces of cut glass and bureau ornaments as Page passed them to her from the depths of a crate."Now, I've done a lot already.That's what made me late.I've ordered your newspaper sent here, and I've telephoned the hotel to forward any mail that comes for you to this address, and I sent word to the gas company to have your gas turned on----""Oh, that's good," said Laura.

"Yes, I thought of that; the man will be up right away to fix it, and I've ordered a cake of ice left here every day, and told the telephone company that you wanted a telephone put in.Oh, yes, and the bottled-milk man--I stopped in at a dairy on the way up.Now, what do we do first?"He took off his coat, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and plunged into the confusion of crates and boxes that congested the rooms and hallways on the first floor of the house.The two sisters could hear him attacking his task with tremendous blows of the kitchen hammer.

From time to time he called up the stairway:

"Hey, what do you want done with this jardiniere thing?

...Where does this hanging lamp go, Laura?"Laura, having unpacked all the cut-glass ornaments, came down-stairs, and she and Landry set about hanging the parlour curtains.

Landry fixed the tops of the window mouldings with a piercing eye, his arms folded.

"I see, I see," he answered to Laura's explanations.

"I see.Now where's a screw-driver, and a step-ladder?

Yes, and I'll have to have some brass nails, and your hired man must let me have that hammer again."He sent the cook after the screw-driver, called the hired man from the furnace, shouted upstairs to Page to ask for the whereabouts of the brass nails, and delegated Laura to steady the step-ladder.

"Now, Landry," directed Laura, "those rods want to be about three inches from the top.""Well," he said, climbing up, "I'll mark the place with the screw and you tell me if it is right."She stepped back, her head to one side.

"No; higher, Landry.There, that's about it--or a _little_ lower--so.That's _just_ right.Come down now and help me put the hooks in."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 settled here? Twice a week--three times?""As if you wanted to see me as often as that.Why, Landry, I'm growing up to be an old maid.You can't want to lose your time calling on old maids."He was voluble in protestations.He was tired of young girls.They were all very well to dance with, but when a man got too old for that sort of thing, be wanted some one with sense to talk to.Yes, he did.Some one with _sense._ Why, he would rather talk five minutes with her----"Honestly, Landry?" she asked, as though he were telling a thing incredible.

He swore to her it was true.His eyes snapped.He struck his palm with his fist.

"An old maid like me?" repeated Laura.

"Old maid nothing!" he vociferated."Ah," he cried, "you seem to understand me.When I look at you, straight into your eyes----"From the doorway the cook announced that the man with the last load of furnace coal had come, and handed Laura the voucher to sign.Then needs must that Laura go with the cook to see if the range was finally and properly adjusted, and while she was gone the man from the gas company called to turn on the meter, and Landry was obliged to look after him.It was half an hour before he and Laura could once more settle themselves on the cushions in the parlour.

"Such a lot of things to do," she said; "and you are such a help, Landry.It was so dear of you to want to come.""I would do anything in the world for you, Laura," he exclaimed, encouraged by her words; "anything.You know I would.It isn't so much that I want you to care for me--and I guess I want _that_ bad enough--but it's because I love to be with you, and be helping you, and all that sort of thing.Now, all this," he waved a hand at the confusion of furniture, "all this to-day--Ijust feel," he declared with tremendous earnestness, "I just feel as though I were entering into your life.