now--going and getting the exact thing I want, instead of finding
something I can make do, and then faking it up to look as much like the
real thing as I could. Portia used to think I faked pretty well. It was
the one thing she really admired about me, because she couldn't do it
herself at all. But I never was--don't you know?--right.

"And then when I was going anywhere, I'd figure out the through routes
and where I'd take transfers, and how many blocks I'd have to walk, and
what kind of shoes I'd have to wear. And coming home in time for dinner
always meant the rush hour, and I'd have to stand. And it simply never
occurred to me that everybody else didn't do it that way. Except"--she
smiled--"except in Robert Chambers' novels and such."

It wasn't necessary to see Rose smile to know she did it. Her voice,
broadening out and--dimpling, betrayed the fact. This smile, plainly
enough, went rather below the surface, carried a reference to something.
But Rodney didn't interrupt. He let her go on and waited to inquire
about it later.

"So you see," she concluded, "it's quite an adventure just to say--well,
that I want the car at a quarter to eleven and to tell Otto exactly
where I want him to drive me to. I always feel as if I ought to say that
if he'll just stop the car at the corner of Diversey Street, I can
walk."

He laughed out at that and asked her how long she thought this blissful
state of things would last.

"Forever," she said.