Moreover,
entertaining at home would be far cheaper for him than at the restaurants.
He was doing fairly well at this time, for he had learned what commodities
the retail men were likely to buy of a firm as small as his, and he had got
into touch with one or two foreign markets not monopolized by the older
houses. Moreover, he had been speculating a little in the new Nevada mines,
and successfully. He presented Alexina with a Victrola which included the
music for all the new dances, and a long coat of baby lamb lined with her
favorite periwinkle blue. To his sister he returned a thousand dollars of
her money.
Alexina knew nothing of these speculations and felt that her original faith
in him was justified. He did not offer even yet to pay all the monthly
expenses of the house, explaining casually that the greater part of his
profits went back into the business; but he handed over his share promptly,
and such fleeting doubts and anxieties as may once have visited his still
inexperienced wife faded and finally disappeared.
II
They began to entertain a little during the second winter, Mrs. Groome
having been dead nearly two years. The new floor of the large drawing-room
had been laid for dancing, and their friends formed a habit, when there was
"nothing on" elsewhere, of telephoning and announcing they were coming up
to take a whirl. This led to more telephoning, and some twenty couples
would dance in the long-silent old house at least once and often three
times a week.
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