"I've often wondered," mused the Colonel, "why it is so much more pleasant to entertain than it is to be entertained. I'd rather have a guest any day than to be one."
"And yet," returned Allison, "if you are a guest, you can get away any time you want to, within reasonable limits. If you're entertaining, you've got to keep it going until they all want to go."
"In that case, it might be better for us if we went to Crosbys'."
"We can do that, too. I think it would be fun, though, to have 'em here. We need another man in one sense, though not in another."
"I have frequently had occasion to observe," remarked the Colonel, "that many promising dinners are wholly spoiled by the idea that there must be an equal number of men and women. One uncongenial guest can ruin a dinner more easily than a poor salad--and that is saying a great deal."
"Your salad days aren't over yet, evidently."
"I hope not."
The hour of talk had done the Colonel a great deal of good, and he was quite himself again. Some new magazines had come in the afternoon mail and lay on the library table. He fingered the paper knife absently as he tore off the outer wrappings and threw them into the fire.
"I believe I'll go up and work for a couple of hours," said Allison, "and then we'll go out for a walk."
"All right, lad. I'll be ready."
Even after the strains of the violin sounded faintly from upstairs, accompanied by a rhythmic tread as Allison walked to and fro, Colonel Kent did not begin to cut the leaves.
Instead, he sat gazing into the fire, thinking. Quite unconsciously, for years, he had been carrying a heavy burden--the fear that Allison would marry and that his marriage would bring separation. Now he was greatly reassured. "And yet," he thought, "there's no telling what a woman may do."
The sense that his work was done still haunted him, and, resolutely, he tried to push it aside. "While there's life, there's work," he said to himself. He knew, however, as he had not known before, that Allison was past the need of his father, except for companionship.
The old house seemed familiar, yet as though it belonged to another life. He remembered the building of it, when, with a girl's golden head upon his shoulder, they had studied plans together far into the night. As though it were yesterday, their delight at the real beginning came back. There was another radiant hour, when the rough flooring for the first story was laid, and, with bare scantlings reared, skeleton-like, all around them, they actually went into their own house.