A Great Success | Page 4

thought to spare to her own looks.
Fortunately she had an instinctive love for neatness and delicacy; so
that her little figure, besides being agile and vigorous--capable of much
dignity too on occasion--was of a singular trimness and grace in all its
simple appointments. Her trousseau was long since exhausted, and she
rarely had a new dress. But slovenly she could not be.
It was the matter of a new dress which was now indeed running in her
mind. She took up Lady Dunstable's letter, and read it pensively
through again.
"You can accept for yourself, Arthur, of course," she said, looking up.
"But I can't possibly go."
Meadows protested loudly.
"You have no excuse at all!" he declared hotly. "Lady Dunstable has
given us a month's notice. You _can't_ get out of it. Do you want me to
be known as a man who accepts smart invitations without his wife?
There is no more caddish creature in the world."
Doris could not help smiling upon him. But her mouth was none the
less determined.
"I haven't got a single frock that's fit for Crosby Ledgers. And I'm not

going on tick for a new one!"
"I never heard anything so absurd! Shan't we have more money in a
few weeks than we've had for years?"
"I dare say. It's all wanted. Besides, I have my work to finish."
"My dear Doris!"
A slight red mounted in Doris's cheeks.
"Oh, you may be as scornful as you like! But ten pounds is ten pounds,
and I like keeping engagements."
The "work" in question meant illustrations for a children's book. Doris
had accepted the commission with eagerness, and had been going
regularly to the Campden Hill studio of an Academician--her mother's
brother--who was glad to supply her with some of the "properties" she
wanted for her drawings.
"I shall soon not allow you to do anything of the kind," said Meadows
with decision.
"On the contrary! I shall always take paid work when I can get it," was
the firm reply--"unless--"
"Unless what?"
"You know," she said quietly. Meadows was silent a moment, then
reached out for her hand, which she gave him. They had no children;
and, as he well knew, Doris pined for them. The look in her eyes when
she nursed her friends' babies had often hurt him. But after all, why
despair? It was only four years from their wedding day.
But he was not going to be beaten in the matter of Crosby Ledgers.
They had a long and heated discussion, at the end of which Doris
surrendered.
"Very well! I shall have to spend a week in doing up my old black

gown, and it will be a botch at the end of it. But--_nothing--will induce
me_--to get a new one!"
She delivered this ultimatum with her hands behind her, a defeated, but
still resolute young person. Meadows, having won the main battle, left
the rest to Providence, and went off to his "den" to read all his letters
through once more--agreeable task!--and to write a note of acceptance
to the Home Secretary, who had asked him to luncheon. Doris was not
included in the invitation. "But anybody may ask a husband--or a
wife--to lunch, separately. That's understood. I shan't do it often,
however--that I can tell them!" And justified by this Spartan temper as
to the future, he wrote a charming note, accepting the delights of the
present, so full of epigram that the Cabinet Minister to whom it was
addressed had no sooner read it than he consigned it instanter to his
wife's collection of autographs.
Meanwhile Doris was occupied partly in soothing the injured feelings
of Jane, and partly in smoothing out and inspecting her one evening
frock. She decided that it would take her a week to "do it up," and that
she would do it herself. "A week wasted!" she thought--"and all for
nothing. What do we want with Lady Dunstable! She'll flatter Arthur,
and make him lazy. They all do! And I've no use for her at all. Maid
indeed! Does she think nobody can exist without that appendage? How
I should like to make her live on four hundred a year, with a husband
that will spend seven!"
She stood, half amused, half frowning, beside the bed on which lay her
one evening frock. But the frown passed away, effaced by an
expression much softer and tenderer than anything she had allowed
Arthur to see of late. Of course she delighted in Arthur's success; she
was proud, indeed, through and through. Hadn't she always known that
he had this gift, this quick, vivacious power of narrative, this
genius--for it was something like it--for literary portraiture? And now
at last the stimulus had come--and the opportunity with it. Could she
ever