The sand-man had been busy with Martin's eyes too, but he led the way
into the dining room with shoulders square and chin high and spring in
his blood. This was home indeed.

"What a tempting little supper!" said Joan. "And just look at all these
flowers."

They were everywhere, lilacs and narcissi, daffodils, violets and
hothouse roses. Hours ago he had sent out the almost unbelieving
footman for them. Joan and flowers--they were synonymous.

She put her pretty face into a great bowl of violets. "You remembered
all my little friends, Marty," she said.

They sat opposite each other at the long table. Martin's father looked
down at Martin's wife, and his mother at the boy from whom she had been
taken when his eager eyes came up to the level of her pillow. And there
was much tenderness on both their faces.

Martin caught the manservant's eyes. "Don't wait," he said. "We'll look
after ourselves."

Presently Joan gave a little laugh. "Please have something yourself.
You're better than a footman. You're a butler."

His smile as he took his place would have lighted up a tunnel.

"I like Delmonico's," said Joan. "We'll often dine there. And the play
was perfectly splendid. What a lot of others there are to see! I don't
think we'll let the grass grow under our feet, Marty. And presently
we'll have some very proper little dinner parties in this room, won't
we? Interesting, vital people, who must all be good-looking and young.
It will be a long time before I shall want to see anyone old again.
Think what Alice Palgrave will say when she comes back! She'll
underline every word if she can find any words. She wasn't married till
she was twenty."

And presently, having pecked at an admirable fruit salad, just sipped a
glass of wine and made close-fitting plans that covered at least a
month, Joan rose. "I shall go up now, Marty," she said. "It's twelve
o'clock."

He watched her go upstairs with his heart in his throat. Surely this
was all a dream, and in a moment he would find himself rudely and
coldly awake, standing in the middle of a crowded, lonely world? But
she stopped on the landing, turned, smiled at him and waved her hand.
He drew in a deep breath, went back into the dining room, put his lips
to the violets that had been touched by her face, and switched off the
lights. The scent of spring was in the air.

"Come in," she said, when presently, after a long pause, he knocked at
her door.

She was sitting at a