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Page 9
Burns shut the door with a bang, and turned upon the figure in the
corner. But his extended arm kept his wife away from him. "Let me go and
refresh," he begged. "I can't bear to touch you after handling that
unwashed lumberjack. Just five minutes and I'll be back."
He was as good as his word. In five minutes he was no longer a busy
professional man, but a gentleman of leisure, with hands cleaner than
those of any fastidious clubman, and clothes which carried no hint of
past usage in other places less chaste than his wife's private
living-rooms.
"Now I'm ready for you," he announced, returning. "And I'll be hanged if
I'll see another interloper to-night. A man has some rights, if he is a
doctor. Morgan, up the street there, is the new man in town, and he has a
display of electric lights in front of his office which fairly yells
'come here!' Let 'em go there! I stay here."
He took his wife in his arms and kissed her hungrily, then stood holding
her close, his cheek against her hair, in absolute contentment. He seemed
to see nothing of the new quarters, though he was now just outside the
living-room door, in the hall which ran between the two parts of the
house. Presently she drew him into the room.
"Look about you," said she. "Have you no curiosity?"
"Not much, while I have you. Still--by George! Well!"
He stood staring about him, his eyes wide open enough now. From one
detail to another his quick, keen-eyed glance roved, lingering an instant
on certain points where artful touches of colour relieved the more
subdued general tone of the furnishings. The room suggested, above all
things, quiet and repose, yet there was a soft and mellow cheer about
it which made it anything but sombre. Its browns and blues and ivories
wrought out an exquisite harmony. The furniture was simple but solid, the
roomy high-backed davenport luxurious with its many pillows. The walls
showed a few good pictures--how good, it might not be that Red Pepper
fully understood. But he did understand, with every sense, that it was
such a room as a man might look upon and be proud to call his home.
But he was silent so long that Ellen looked up at him, to make sure that
there was no displeasure in his face. Instead she found there deeper
feeling than she expected. He returned her look, and she discovered that
he was not finding it easy to tell her what he thought of it all. She led
him to the couch and drew him down beside her. He put his arm about her,
and with her head upon his shoulder the pair sat for some time in a
silence which Ellen would not end. But at length, looking into the fire,
his head resting against hers, Burns broke the stillness.
"I suppose I'm an impressionable chap," he said, "but I wasn't prepared
for just this. I knew it would be a beautiful room, if you saw to it, but
I had no possible notion how beautiful it would be. There is just one
thing about it that breaks me up a bit. Perhaps you won't understand, but
I can't help wishing I could have done the work for you instead of you
for me. It isn't the work, either, it's the--love."
"And you couldn't have spared enough of that to furnish a room with?"
He laughed, drawing her even closer then he had held her before. "I'll
trust you to corner me, every time," he said. "Yes, I could have spared
love enough--no doubt of that. But it seems as if it were the man who
should put the house in order for the woman he brings home."
"You have excellent taste," said she demurely, "but I never should
credit you with the discriminations and fastidiousnesses of a decorator.
And why should you want to take away from me the happiness of making my
own nest? Don't you know it's the home-maker who finds most joy in the
home? Yet--it's the home-comer I want to have find the joy. Do you think
you can rest in this room, Red?"
He drew a deep, contented breath. "Every minute I am in it. And from
the time I first begin to think about it, coming toward it. Home! It's
Paradise! This great, deep, all-embracing blue thing we're sitting in--is
it made of down and velvet?"
"Precisely that. Velvet to cover it, down in the pillows. I hope you'll
have many a splendid nap here."
"You'll spoil me," he declared, "if you let me sleep here. I'm used to
catching forty winks in my old leather chair in the office, while I wait
for a summons."
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