"You can't have nine courses with
no one to serve them. Ellen even refuses to bring anything in. _We_
can't get up and keep running around the table! It makes the whole thing
a failure--worse than that, ridiculous. I didn't mind how hard I worked
for dear Mrs. Devereaux, but I did want it all to be right."

"Poor girl!" said Kersley, tenderly, moving sympathetically very, very
near her, with a repetition of the arm movement. "You're tired."

"Now, Kersley, please don't." Marcia again retreated with glowing
cheeks. She tried to keep an unexpected tremulousness out of her voice.
"I have enough on my mind without having you, too. If I were to spoil
all your prospects now, I'd never forgive myself."

"You get so in the habit of saying that absurd thing," began Kersley,
doggedly, "that--Never mind, never mind, Marcia dear. I won't bother you
now. But you'll have to let me have my way in one thing, anyway--I'm
going to help you out; I'm going to stay and wait on the table myself."

"Kersley!"

"I'll make a bang-up waiter; do it in style."

"Kersley!"

"Just pretend I'm the butler. It's been done lots of times before, you
know; it's not a bit original. And I'd like to do something for Mrs.
Devereaux, too, good old multi-millionairess. I owe her one for being
such a trump to you. I'll make her one of my omelets, too, if Ellen will
let me."

"But Mrs. Devereaux will recognize you!" Marcia felt wildly that she was
half assenting, in spite of the absurdity of it.

"Recognize the butler? She won't know that he exists except to pass her
things. Besides, she's only seen me a couple of times."

"But the family party at your brother's?"

"They'll have to get along without me. I'll cut back now and tell them,
and get my dress suit, and then I'll turn myself loose in your kitchen.
It's all decided, Marcia." He smiled brilliantly down at her from the
height of his six feet, as Kersley could smile sometimes, when he wanted
to get his own way. His finger tips touched her curling locks on his way
past the ottoman upon which she had dropped.

She sat there after he had gone, her chin supported by her hand, her
dark eyes looking intently before her into the yellow chrysanthemum. In
spite of her boast to Kitty that she was satisfied with "things as they
were," there were moments when a long-drawn-out future of joy withheld
pressed upon little Marcia with strange heaviness--moments when it was
hard to be always wise for two; there