A muffled sob floated over the wire.
“Have you only just remembered?” said Lucille in a small voice.
Archie, bracing himself up, cackled gleefully into the receiver.
“Did I take you in, light of my home? Do you mean to say you really thought I had forgotten? For Heaven’s sake!”
“You didn’t say a word at breakfast.”
“Ah, but that was all part of the devilish cunning. I hadn’t got a present for you then. At least, I didn’t know whether it was ready.”
“Oh, Archie, you darling!” Lucille’s voice had lost its crushed melancholy. She trilled like a thrush, or a linnet, or any bird that goes in largely for trilling. “Have you really got me a present?”
“It’s here now. The dickens of a fruity picture. One of J. B. Wheeler’s things. You’ll like it.”
“Oh, I know I shall. I love his work. You are an angel. We’ll hang it over the piano.”
“I’ll be round with it in something under three ticks, star of my soul. I’ll take a taxi.”
“Yes, do hurry! I want to hug you!”
“Right-o!” said Archie. “I’ll take two taxis.”
It is not far from Washington Square to the Hotel Cosmopolis, and Archie made the journey without mishap. There was a little unpleasantness with the cabman before starting–he, on the prudish plea that he was a married man with a local reputation to keep up, declining at first to be seen in company with the masterpiece. But, on Archie giving a promise to keep the front of the picture away from the public gaze, he consented to take the job on; and, some ten minutes later, having made his way blushfully through the hotel lobby and endured the frank curiosity of the boy who worked the elevator, Archie entered his suite, the picture under his arm.
He placed it carefully against the wall in order to leave himself more scope for embracing Lucille, and when the joyful reunion–or the sacred scene, if you prefer so to call it, was concluded, he stepped forward to turn it round and exhibit it.
“Why, it’s enormous,” said Lucille. “I didn’t know Mr. Wheeler ever painted pictures that size. When you said it was one of his, I thought it must be the original of a magazine drawing or something like–Oh!”
Archie had moved back and given her an uninterrupted view of the work of art, and she had started as if some unkindly disposed person had driven a bradawl into her.
“Pretty ripe, what?” said Archie enthusiastically.
Lucille did not speak for a moment. It may have been sudden joy that kept her silent. Or, on the other hand, it may not. She stood looking at the picture with wide eyes and parted lips.
“A bird, eh?” said Archie.
“Y–yes,” said Lucille.
“I knew you’d like it,” proceeded Archie with animation, “You see? you’re by way of being a picture-hound–know all about the things, and what not–inherit it from the dear old dad, I shouldn’t wonder. Personally, I can’t tell one picture from another as a rule, but I’m bound to say, the moment I set eyes on this, I said to myself ‘What ho!’ or words to that effect, I rather think this will add a touch of distinction to the home, yes, no? I’ll hang it up, shall I? ‘Phone down to the office, light of my soul, and tell them to send up a nail, a bit of string,, and the hotel hammer.”
“One moment, darling. I’m not quite sure.”
“Eh?”
“Where it ought to hang, I mean. You see–”
“Over the piano, you said. The jolly old piano.”
“Yes, but I hadn’t seen it then.”
A monstrous suspicion flitted for an instant into Archie’s mind.
“I say, you do like it, don’t you?” he said anxiously.
“Oh, Archie, darling! Of course I do!-And it was so sweet of you to give it to me. But, what I was trying to say was that this picture is so–so striking that I feel that we ought to wait a little while and decide where it would have the best effect. The light over the piano is rather strong.”
“You thing it ought to hang in a dimmish light, what?”