grew
rather to like the white-tiled place, with its look of a laboratory. But
then, he didn't have as much time to work at home as he formerly had
had. They went out more evenings.

The new four-room flat rented at sixty dollars. "Seems the less room
you have the more you pay," Ray observed.

"There's no comparison. Look at the neighbourhood! And the living room's
twice as big."

It didn't seem to be. Perhaps this was due to its furnishings. The
Mission pieces had gone to the second-hand dealer. Ray was assistant
manager of the optical department at Nagel's now and he was getting
royalties on a new smoked glass device. There were large over-stuffed
chairs in the new living room, and a seven-foot davenport, and oriental
rugs, and lamps and lamps and lamps. The silk lampshade conflagration
had just begun to smoulder in the American household. The dining room
had one of those built-in Chicago buffets. It sparkled with cut glass.
There was a large punch bowl in the centre, in which Cora usually kept
receipts, old bills, moth balls, buttons, and the tarnished silver top
to a syrup jug that she always meant to have repaired. Queen Louise was
banished to the bedroom where she surveyed a world of cretonne.

Cora was a splendid cook. She had almost a genius for flavouring. Roast
or cheese souffle or green apple pie--your sense of taste never
experienced that disappointment which comes of too little salt, too much
sugar, a lack of shortening. Expert as she was at it, Cora didn't like
to cook. That is, she didn't like to cook day after day. She rather
liked doing an occasional meal and producing it in a sort of red-cheeked
triumph. When she did this it was an epicurean thing, savoury, hot,
satisfying. But as a day-after-day programme Cora would not hear of it.
She had banished the maid. Four rooms could not accommodate her. A woman
came in twice a week to wash and iron and clean. Often Cora did not get
up for breakfast and Ray got his at one of the little lunch rooms that
were springing up all over that section of the North Side. Eleven
o'clock usually found Cora at the manicure's, or the dressmaker's, or
shopping, or telephoning luncheon arrangements with one of the Crowd.
Ray and Cora were going out a good deal with the Crowd. Young married
people like themselves, living royally just a little beyond their
income. The women were well-dressed, vivacious, somewhat shrill. They
liked stories that were a little off-colour. "Blue