mother, and for that matter, Portia herself had spoiled her a lot--had
run about doing little things for her, come in and shut down her windows
in the morning, and opened the register, and on any sort of excuse, on a
Saturday morning, for example, had brought her her breakfast on a tray.

But these things had been favors, not services--never to be asked for,
of course, and always to be accepted a little apologetically. She never
knew what it was really to be served, until she and Rodney came back
from their camp in the woods. The whole mechanism of ringing bells for
people, telling them, quite courteously of course, but with no spare
words, precisely what she wanted them to do and seeing them, with no
words at all of their own, except the barest minimum required to
indicate respectful acquiescence--carrying out these instructions, was
in its novelty, as sensuously delightful a thing to her feelings as the
contact with a fine fabric was to her finger-tips.

"I haven't," Rose, in bed, told Rodney one morning, "a single, blessed,
mortal thing to do all day." Some fixture scheduled for that morning had
been moved, she went on to explain, and Eleanor Randolph was feeling
seedy and had called off a little luncheon and matinée party. So, she
concluded with a deep-drawn sigh, the day was empty.

"Oh, that's too bad," he said with concern. "Can't you manage
something ...?"

"Too bad!" said Rose in lively dissent. "It's too heavenly! I've got a
whole day just to enjoy being myself;--being"--she reached across to the
other bed for his hand, and getting it, stroked her cheek with
it--"being my new self. You've no idea how new it is, or how exciting
all the little things about it are. State Street's so different