“It has such a beautiful polish. That is another room. Carmen says that will be our sober room, where we go when we want to repent of things.”
“Well, if you have any sandal-wood left over, you can work it into your Boys' Lodging-house, you know.”
“Don't be foolish! And then the ballroom, ninety feet long—it looks small on the paper. And do you think we'd better have those life-size figures all round, mediaeval statues, with the incandescents? Carmen says she would prefer a row of monks—something piquant about that in a ballroom. I don't know that I like the figures, after all; they are too crushing and heavy.”
“It would make a good room for the Common Council,” Henderson suggested. “Wouldn't it be prettier hung with silken arras figured with a chain of dancing-girls? Dear me, I don't know what to do. Rodney, you must put your mind on it.”
“Might line it with gold plate. I'll make arrangements so that you can draw on the Bank of England.”
Margaret looked hurt. “But you told me, dear, not to spare anything—that we would have the finest house in the city. I'm sure I sha'n't enjoy it unless you want it.”
“Oh, I want it,” resumed Henderson, good-humoredly. “Go ahead, little wife. We shall pull through.”
“Women beat me,” Henderson confessed to Uncle Jerry next day. “They are the most economical of beings and the most extravagant. I've got to look round for an extra million somewhere today.”
“Yes, there is this good thing about women,” Uncle Jerry responded, with a twinkle in his eyes, “they share your riches just as cheerfully as they do your poverty. I tell Maria that if I had the capacity for making money that she has for spending it I could assume the national debt.”
To have the finest house in the city, or rather, in the American newspaper phrase, in the Western world, was a comprehensible ambition for Henderson, for it was a visible expression of his wealth and his cultivated taste. But why Margaret should wish to exchange her dainty and luxurious home in Washington Square for the care of a vast establishment big enough for a royal court, my wife could not comprehend. But why not? To be the visible leader in her world, to be able to dispense a hospitality which should surpass anything heretofore seen, to be the mistress and autocrat of an army of servants, with ample room for their evolution, in a palace whose dimensions and splendor should awaken envy and astonishment—would this not be an attraction to a woman of imagination and spirit?