"You don't mind, do you, Bill--if I have a maid? All the nicest----" "Anything your little heart desires!" Bill said, turning abruptly and smiling steadfastly down at her where she was sitting on the floor, on a purple silk cushion, trying on a pair of satin slippers that didn't seem to want to go on at the heel. He watched her, his eyes studying her flushed face and tousled hair. "I reckon you do need help," he said, a dryness in his tone of which he was not quite aware, and which Doris missed altogether in her absorption. "If you had somebody to do all the things you spend your time on, maybe we could enjoy life--better," he added hastily. "We could be together more, couldn't we?" "Together more?" Doris looked up, the silver shoehorn poised in her hand. "Good gracious! Aren't we together every single minute, almost? Bill, see if you can get this pesky slipper on; the other one's all right; they're half a size too small, but they're the only pair that just matches that new lace gown." (Doris had already learned to say gown and frock, and to avoid the word dress except as a verb.) Bill knelt and lifted the foot, thrilling again at the touch of her slim ankle. "Do you remember the night you came to camp, all wet and cold, and--you let me unlace your boots?" He smiled wistfully into her eyes. "I was all a-tremble, honey--I had to keep my lip between my teeth, and bite down hard to steady me. I was so happy----" "What about? The privilege of handling wet boot laces?" Doris leaned and tried to push her toes farther into the slipper. "They were _your_ boot laces." Bill's soul withdrew from her matter-of-factness, much as Sister Mitchell used to draw into her shell at the first blast on the saxophone. "I wonder if the housekeeper won't have something to stretch this slipper on," said Doris. "Can you find out, dear? I simply _must_ make them do for to-night, or I can't wear that gown." "Why can't you wear something else, then, and be comfortable?" Bill set her foot on the floor and got up. "You'd better take these back and change them." "I can't," Doris said shortly. "I've ordered our table decorated to harmonize with this particular outfit. You don't understand, Bill-dear. Men get the effect, all right, and call a woman beautiful or ugly or just so-so, and never dream that it's because the details have been thought out, or haven't. I've noticed things. I know exactly how women get that carelessly beautiful effect. It doesn't just happen so, dear man. They spend _hours_, just thinking up the careless touches.