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Page 24
CHAPTER VII.
BE HONEST AND KEEP WARM.
The architect went home to translate the instructions he had received
into the language that builders understand. Jack and Jill established
themselves in the house that Jack built. The proposed amendments were
indefinitely postponed; Jill having consented to take the house
temporarily as she had taken Jack permanently--for better or
worse--only claiming her reserved right, in the case of the house, of
privately finding all the fault she pleased. Even the staircase, so
favorable to a swift descent, remained unchanged, and in their own room
the bed stood squarely in the middle of the floor. Jack averred that
this was intended when the house was planned, because the air is so
much better in the centre of a room, and there is not so much danger of
being struck by lightning.
One day there came a cold, gloomy rain on the wings of a raw east wind,
and after Jack had gone to his office it occurred to Jill that a fire
on the hearth in the parlor, which they used as a common sitting-room,
would be exceedingly comfortable, but on removing a highly ornamental
screen that served as a "fireboard," she found neither grate nor
fireplace, only a blank wall plastered and papered. Her righteous
wrath was kindled, not because she was compelled to get warm in some
other way, but by the fraudulent character of the chimney-piece. "I can
imagine nothing more absurdly impertinent," she declared to Jack when
he came home, "than that huge marble mantel standing stupidly against
the wall where there isn't even a chimney for a background. As a piece
of furniture it is superfluous; as a wall decoration it is hideous; as
a shelf it is preposterous; as a fireplace it is a downright lie. If
our architect suggests anything of the kind he will be dismissed on the
instant."
[Illustration: THE POOR BUT MODEST ATTORNEY'S COTTAGE]
"Don't you think the room would look rather bare without a mantel? You
know it's the most common thing in the world to have them like this. I
can show you a hundred without going out of town."
"Common! It's worse than common; it is vulgar, it is atrocious, it is
the sum of all villainies!" said Jill, her indignation rising with each
succeeding epithet. "A fireplace is a sacred thing. To pretend to have
one when you have not is like pretending to be pious when you know you
are wicked; it is stealing the livery of a warm, gracious, kindly
hospitality to serve you in making a cold, heartless _pretense_ of
welcome."
"I didn't mean to do anything wrong," Jack protested with exceeding
meekness. "Such mantels were all the fashion when this house was built,
and fashions in marble can't be changed as easily as fashions in paper
flowers."
"There ought not to be 'fashions' in marble, but of course it was
fashion. Nothing else than the blindest of all blind guides could have
led people into anything so hopelessly silly and unprincipled. I shall
never enjoy this room again," she continued, "knowing, as well I know,
that yonder stately piece of sculpture is a whited sepulchre, a
delusion and a snare. I shall feel that I ought to unmask it the moment
a visitor comes in, lest I should be asked to make a fire on the hearth
and be obliged to confess the depravity in our own household."
[Illustration: A DOUBLE TEAM.]
"Now, really, my dear, don't you think you are coming it rather strong,
if I may be allowed the expression? Isn't it possible that your present
views may be slightly tinged by the color of the east wind, so to
speak?"
"Not in the least. You know perfectly well, Jack, that insincerity is
the bane of domestic and social life; that hypocrisy is a child of the
Evil One, and that vain and false pretensions are the fatal lures that
lead us on to destruction. How can we respect ourselves or expect our
friends to respect us if the most conspicuous thing in the house is a
palpable fraud?"
"Very well, dear, I'll bring up a can of nitro-glycerine to-morrow and
blow the whole establishment into the middle of futurity. Meanwhile,
let us see if anything can be done to make it endurable a few hours
longer."
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