“I made the reservations to-day.  We sail the third of August,” Richard said.  “We’ve got to have your pictures taken for the passports.”

“South America!” Harriet gave a great sigh of joy.  “You don’t know how excited I am!” she said.  “Three weeks on a big liner—­and we have to have bathing-suits, somebody said for the canvas tank, and they have all sorts of things on board.  I’ve always wanted to go to Rio!”

“There are eight big staterooms with baths on this liner,” Richard said.  “I’ve taken two adjoining ones, so we ought to be very comfortable.  Yes,” he conceded, enjoying her enthusiasm, “it ought to be a great trip!  Will you and Nina want a maid?”

“A maid?” She widened her blue eyes.  “Oh, no!  Why should we?”

Richard laughed at her surprise.

“You might take Pilgrim,” he suggested.  And with an amused glance he added:  “You forget that you are a rich man’s wife.”

“Indeed I don’t!” Harriet said, quickly.  “I spend simply scandalous sums!  When I saw my sister last week,” she confided, gaily, “she explained that the payment on the new house would prevent the usual six weeks at the beach this year, and I simply made them go!  I paid the rent on their cottage and bought the tickets, and—­oh, all sorts of things, little dresses and sandals and shade hats, and off they went!  You never saw such joy!”

Richard blinked his eyes, and managed a smile.

“What did you pay it out of?” he wondered,

“My bank account!  Linda and I shopped a whole morning, and had lunch downtown—­it was more fun!” Harriet said, youthfully.  “The rent,” she explained, “was eighty dollars—­”

“What?  For six weeks!” Richard interrupted.

“Do you think that’s a lot?” she asked, anxiously.

“Go on!” he said.  “They all went off, did they?  Eighty dollars gives them a cottage until the middle of August, does it?”

“Until school opens,” she nodded.  “All the other things—­well, it came to about two hundred.”

“That’s happiness, isn’t it?” Richard said.  “A cottage on a swarming beach.  Sons and daughters in bathing-suits, no real housekeeping for the mother, nothing but sleep and swimming and plain meals!”

“They love it!” But Harriet’s eyes drank in the awninged shade of the country club porches, the flowered cretonne on the wicker chairs, the women in their exquisite gowns, the smooth curves of the green links, where brightly clad figures went to and fro.  Riders were disappearing into the green shade of the bridle paths; girls in white, demanding tea, came up the shallow steps.  A group of four women, at a card table, broke up with laughter.  “Yes, it’s honester than this,” she said, bringing her eyes back to his.  “I’ll have Linda and the girls here some day,” she added, “and they’ll think it is wonderful.  But after all, they get more taste out of life!”

“You know they do!” Richard said.