They were married while the flowers were knee-deep over the sunny slopes and mesas, and the gulfs of color and , and went for their first moon together to a far high mountain valley hidden among wooded peaks, with a clear lake for its central jewel.
A month of heaven; while wave on wave of perfect rest and world-forgetting oblivion rolled over both their hearts.
They swam together in the dawn-flushed lake, seeing the morning mists float up from the silver surface, breaking the still reflection of thick trees and clouds, rejoicing in the level of forest filtered sunlight. They played and ran like children, rejoiced over their picnic meals; lay flat among the crowding flowers and slept under the tender starlight.
“I don't see,” said her lover, “but that my Amazon is just as much a woman as—as any woman!”
“Who ever said I wasn't?” quoth Diantha .
A month of perfect happiness. It was so short it seemed but a moment; so long in its rich perfection that they both agreed if life brought no further joy this was Enough.
Then they came down from the mountains and began living.
Day service is not so easily arranged on a some miles from town. They tried it for a while, the new runabout car bringing out a girl in the morning early, and taking Diantha in to her office.
But motor cars are not infallible; and if it met with any accident there was delay at both ends, and more or less .
Then Diantha engaged a first-class Oriental gentleman, well recommended by the “vegetable Chinaman,” on their own place. This was extremely satisfactory; he did the work well, and was in all ways reliable; but there arose in the town a current of criticism and protest—that she “did not live up to her principles.”
To this she paid no attention; her work was now too well planted, too increasingly prosperous to be weakened by small .
Her mother, growing plumper now, thriving continuously in her new lines of work, kept the hotel under her management, and did bookkeeping for the whole concern. New union Home ran itself, and articles were written about it in magazines; so that here and there in other cities similar clubs were started, with varying success. The restaurant was increasingly popular; Diantha's cooks were highly skilled and handsomely paid, and from the cheap lunch to the expensive banquet they gave satisfaction.
But the “c. f. d.” was the darling of her heart, and it exceedingly. “There is no advertisement like a pleased customer,” and her pleased customers grew in numbers and in enthusiasm. Family after family learned to prize the cleanliness and quiet, the odorlessness and flylessness of a home without a kitchen, and their questioning guests were converted by the excellent of the meals.
Critical women learned at last that a competent cook can really produce better food than an one; without the sanctity of the home.
“Sanctity of your bootstraps!” protested one irascible gentleman. “Such talk is all nonsense! I don't want sacred meals—I want good ones—and I'm getting them, at last!”
“We don't about 'home ' any more,” said another, “or 'home tailoring,' or 'home shoemaking.' Why all this talk about 'home cooking'?”
What pleased the men most was not only the good food, but its clock-work ; and not only the reduced bills but the increased health and happiness of their wives. Domestic increased in Orchardina, and the doctors were more confined to the of tourists.
Ross did his best. Under the merciless of Mr. Thaddler he had been brought to see that Diantha had a right to do this if she would, and that he had no right to prevent her; but he did not like it any the better.
When she rolled away in her little car in the bright, sweet mornings, a light went out of the day for him. He wanted her there, in the home—his home—his wife—even when he was not in it himself. And in this particular case it was harder than for most men, because he was in the house a good deal, in his study, with no better company than a polite Chinaman some distance off.
It was by no means easy for Diantha, either. To leave him at her heart-strings, as it did at his; and if he had to struggle with inherited feelings and acquired traditions, still more was she with an unexpected uprising of sentiments and desires she had never dreamed of feeling.
With marriage, love, happiness came an overwhelming instinct of service—personal service. She wanted to wait on him, loved to do it; regarded Wang Fu with positive when he brought in the coffee and Ross praised it. She had a sense of treason, of neglected duty, as she left the flower-crowned cottage, day by day.
But she left it, she into her work, she schooled herself religiously.
“Shame on you!” she herself. “Now—now that you've got everything on earth—to weaken! You could stand unhappiness; can't you stand happiness?” And she strove with herself; and kept on with her work.
After all, the happiness was presently by the pressure of this blank wall between them. She came home, eager, loving, delighted to be with him again. He received her with no complaint or criticism, but always an unspoken, perhaps imagined, sense of protest. She was full of loving enthusiasm about his work, and he would upon his guinea-pigs and their development with high satisfaction.
But he never could bring himself to ask about her with any genuine approval; she was keenly sensitive to his dislike for the subject, and so it was ignored between them, or treated by him in a of humor with which he strove to cover his real feeling.
When, before many months were over, the crowning triumph of her effort revealed itself, her joy and pride held this bitter drop—he did not sympathize—did not approve. Still, it was a great glory.
The New York Company announced the completion of their work and the Hotel del las Casas was opened to public . “House of the Houses! That's a fine name!” said some ; but, at any rate, it seemed appropriate. The big estate was one rich garden, more , more dreamily beautiful, than the American commercial mind was usually able to compass, even when of millions. The hotel of itself was a pleasure palace—wholly unostentatious, full of gaiety and charm, offering lovely for guests and residents, and every opportunity for healthful amusement. There was the rare luxury of a big swimming-pool; there were billiard rooms, card rooms, reading rooms, lounging rooms and dancing rooms of satisfying extent.
Outside there were tennis-courts, badminton, roque, even croquet; and the wide roof was a garden of Babylon, a Court of the Stars, with views of purple mountains, fair, wide valley and far-flashing of sea. Around it, each in its own hedged garden, nestled “Las Casas”—the Houses—twenty in number, with shaded paths, groups of rare trees, a of flowers, between and about them. In one corner was a playground for children—a wall around this, that they might shout in freedom; and the nursery gave every provision for the happiness and safety of the little ones.
The people poured along the winding walls, entered the pretty cottages, were much impressed by a little flock of well-floored tents in another corner, but came back with Ohs! and Ahs! of delight to the large building in the Avenue.
Diantha went all over the place, inch by inch, her eyes widening with ; Mr. and Mrs. Porne and Mrs. Weatherstone with her. She enjoyed the , well-planned beauty of the whole; approved of the cottages, each one a little different, each charming in its quiet privacy, admired the arrangements for pleasure and gay association; but her professional soul blazed with enthusiasm over the great kitchens, clean as a hospital, glittering in glass and and cool tiling, with the swift, sure electric stove.
The fuel all went into a small, solidly built power house, and came out in light and heat and force for the whole square.
Diantha sighed in absolute .
“Fine, isn't it?” said Mr. Porne.
“How do you like the architecture?” asked Mrs. Porne.
“What do you think of my investment?” said Mrs. Weatherstone. Diantha stopped in her tracks and looked from one to the other of them.
“Fact. I control the stock—I'm president of the Hotel del las Casas Company. Our friends here have stock in it, too, and more that you don't know. We think it's going to be a paying concern. But if you can make it go, my dear, as I think you will, you can buy us all out and own the whole !”
It took some time to explain all this, but the facts were visible enough.
“Nothing at all,” said Mrs. Weatherstone. “Here's Astor with three big hotels on his hands—why shouldn't I have one to play with? And I've got to employ somebody to manage it!”
Within a year of her marriage Diantha was at the head of this pleasing Centre of Housekeeping. She kept the hotel itself so that it was a joy to all i............