hing of; but he had not seen in her
one capable of absolutely reveling in the humdrum. Evidently, then, he
had not grasped the full meaning of a genuine _joie de vivre_.

To everything she did Rosamund brought zest. She kept house as she sang
"The heart ever faithful," holding nothing back. Everything must be
right if she could get it right; and the husband got the benefit,
incidentally. Now and then Dion found himself mentally murmuring that
word. A great love will do such things unreasonably. For Rosamund's
_joie de vivre_, that gift of the gods, caused her to love and rejoice
in a thing for the thing's own sake, as it seemed, rather than for the
sake of some one, any one, who was eventually to gain by the thing.
Thus she cared for her little house with a sort of joyous devotion and
energy, but because it was "my little house" and deserved every care
she could give it. Rather as she had spoken of the small olive tree on
Drouva, of the Hermes of Olympia, even of Athens, she spoke of it, with
a sort of protective affection, as if she thought of it as a living
thing confided to her keeping. She possessed a faculty not very common
in women, a delight in doing a thing for its own sake, rather than for
the sake of some human being--perhaps a man. If she boiled an egg--she
went to the kitchen and did this sometimes--she seemed personally
interested in the egg, and keenly anxious to do the best by it; the
boiling must be a pleasure to her, but also to the egg, and it must,
if possible, be supremely well done. As the cook once said, after a
culinary effort by Rosamund, "I never seen a lady care for cooking and
all such-like as she done. If she as much as plucked a fowl, you'd swear
she loved every feather of it. And as to a roast, she couldn't hardly
seem to set more store by it if it was her own husband."

Such a spirit naturally made for comfort in a house, and Dion had never
before been so comfortable. Nevertheless--and he knew it with a keen
savoring of appreciation--there was a Spartan touch to be felt in the
little house. Comfort walked hand in hand with Rosamund, but so did
simplicity; she was what the maids called "particular," but she was not
luxurious; she even disliked luxury, connecting it with superfluity,
for which she had a feeling amounting almost to repulsion. "I detest the
sensation of sinking down in _things_," was a favorite saying of hers;
and the way she lived proved that she spoke the sheer truth.

All