«Gretchen,» said Roger sharply, ’if you’ll just believe in me as hard as you can for six weeks more we’ll be rich. I’ve got a chance now to get some of the biggest accounts in the country.» He hesitated. «And for these six weeks we won’t go out at all, and we won’t have anyone here. I’m going to bring home work every night, and we’ll pull down all the blinds and if anyone rings the doorbell we won’t answer.»
He smiled airily as if it were a new game they were going to play. Then, as Gretchen was silent, his smile faded, and he looked at her uncertainly.
«Well, what’s the matter?» she broke out finally. «Do you expect me to jump up and sing? You do enough work as it is. If you try to do any more you’ll end up with a nervous breakdown. I read about a – »
«Don’t worry about me,» he interrupted; «I’m all right. But you’re going to be bored to death sitting here every evening.»
«No, I won’t,» she said without conviction – ’except tonight.»
«What about tonight?»
«George Tompkins asked us to dinner.»
«Did you accept?»
«Of course I did,» she said impatiently. «Why not? You’re always talking about what a terrible neighbourhood this is, and I thought maybe you’d like to go to a nicer one for a change.»
«When I go to a nicer neighbourhood I want to go for good,» he said grimly.
«Well, can we go?»
«I suppose we’ll have to if you’ve accepted.»
Somewhat to his annoyance the conversation abruptly ended. Gretchen jumped up and kissed him sketchily and rushed into the kitchen to light the hot water for a bath. With a sigh he carefully deposited his portfolio behind the bookcase – it contained only sketches and layouts for display advertising, but it seemed to him the first thing a burglar would look for. Then he went abstractedly upstairs, dropping into the baby’s room for a casual moist kiss, and began dressing for dinner.
They had no automobile, so George Tompkins called for them at 6.30. Tompkins was a successful interior decorator, a broad, rosy man with a handsome moustache and a strong odour of jasmine. He and Roger had once roomed side by side in a boarding-house in New York, but they had met only intermittently in the past five years.
«We ought to see each other more,» he told Roger tonight. «You ought to go out more often, old boy. Cocktail?»