第57章

AND HEAVEN BESIDE.

They were married while the flowers were knee-deep over the sunny slopes and mesas, and the canyons gulfs of color and fragrance, and went for their first moon together to a far high mountain valley hidden among wooded peaks, with a clear lake for its central jewel.

A month of heaven; while wave on wave of perfect rest and world-forgetting oblivion rolled over both their hearts.

They swam together in the dawn-flushed lake, seeing the morning mists float up from the silver surface, breaking the still reflection of thick trees and rosy clouds, rejoicing in the level shafts of forest filtered sunlight.They played and ran like children, rejoiced over their picnic meals; lay flat among the crowding flowers and slept under the tender starlight.

"I don't see," said her lover, "but that my strenuous Amazon is just as much a woman as--as any woman!""Who ever said I wasn't?" quoth Diantha demurely.

A month of perfect happiness.It was so short it seemed but a moment;so long in its rich perfection that they both agreed if life brought no further joy this was Enough.

Then they came down from the mountains and began living.

Day service is not so easily arranged on a ranch some miles from town.

They tried it for a while, the new runabout car bringing out a girl in the morning early, and taking Diantha in to her office.

But motor cars are not infallible; and if it met with any accident there was delay at both ends, and more or less friction.

Then Diantha engaged a first-class Oriental gentleman, well recommended by the "vegetable Chinaman," on their own place.This was extremely satisfactory; he did the work well, and was in all ways reliable; but there arose in the town a current of malicious criticism and protest--that she "did not live up to her principles."To this she paid no attention; her work was now too well planted, too increasingly prosperous to be weakened by small sneers.

Her mother, growing plumper now, thriving continuously in her new lines of work, kept the hotel under her immediate management, and did bookkeeping for the whole concern.New Union Home ran itself, and articles were written about it in magazines; so that here and there in other cities similar clubs were started, with varying success.The restaurant was increasingly popular; Diantha's cooks were highly skilled and handsomely paid, and from the cheap lunch to the expensive banquet they gave satisfaction.

But the "c.f.d." was the darling of her heart, and it prospered exceedingly."There is no advertisement like a pleased customer," and her pleased customers grew in numbers and in enthusiasm.Family after family learned to prize the cleanliness and quiet, the odorlessness and flylessness of a home without a kitchen, and their questioning guests were converted by the excellent of the meals.

Critical women learned at last that a competent cook can really produce better food than an incompetent one; albeit without the sanctity of the home.

"Sanctity of your bootstraps!" protested one irascible gentleman."Such talk is all nonsense! I don't want _sacred_ meals--I want good ones--and I'm getting them, at last!""We don't brag about 'home brewing' any more," said another, "or 'home tailoring,' or 'home shoemaking.' Why all this talk about 'home cooking'?"What pleased the men most was not only the good food, but its clock-work regularity; and not only the reduced bills but the increased health and happiness of their wives.Domestic bliss increased in Orchardina, and the doctors were more rigidly confined to the patronage of tourists.

Ross Warden did his best.Under the merciless friendliness of Mr.

Thaddler he had been brought to see that Diantha had a right to do this if she would, and that he had no right to prevent her; but he did not like it any the better.

When she rolled away in her little car in the bright, sweet mornings, a light went out of the day for him.He wanted her there, in the home--his home--his wife--even when he was not in it himself.And in this particular case it was harder than for most men, because he was in the house a good deal, in his study, with no better company than a polite Chinaman some distance off.

It was by no means easy for Diantha, either.To leave him tugged at her heart-strings, as it did at his; and if he had to struggle with inherited feelings and acquired traditions, still more was she beset with an unexpected uprising of sentiments and desires she had never dreamed of feeling.

With marriage, love, happiness came an overwhelming instinct of service--personal service.She wanted to wait on him, loved to do it;regarded Wang Fu with positive jealousy when he brought in the coffee and Ross praised it.She had a sense of treason, of neglected duty, as she left the flower-crowned cottage, day by day.

But she left it, she plunged into her work, she schooled herself religiously.

"Shame on you!" she berated herself."Now--_now_ that you've got everything on earth--to weaken! You could stand unhappiness; can't you stand happiness?" And she strove with herself; and kept on with her work.

After all, the happiness was presently diluted by the pressure of this blank wall between them.She came home, eager, loving, delighted to be with him again.He received her with no complaint or criticism, but always an unspoken, perhaps imagined, sense of protest.She was full of loving enthusiasm about his work, and he would dilate upon his harassed guinea-pigs and their development with high satisfaction.

But he never could bring himself to ask about her labors with any genuine approval; she was keenly sensitive to his dislike for the subject, and so it was ignored between them, or treated by him in a vein of humor with which he strove to cover his real feeling.

When, before many months were over, the crowning triumph of her effort revealed itself, her joy and pride held this bitter drop--he did not sympathize--did not approve.Still, it was a great glory.