4
The living-room was at the back. It was big and quiet and comfortable. There was a phonoradio and a record cabinet, and a big bookcase, and another tier of shelves stacked with sheet music, and a baby piano. The far end of it was solid with tall windows.
"There's a sort of garden outside," she said. "And the other end of it falls straight down on to East River Drive, and there's nothing beyond that but the river, so it's almost rustic. It only took me about three years to find it."
He nodded.
"It looks like three well-spent years."
He felt at home there, and easily relaxed. Even the endless undertones of traffic were almost lost there, so that the city they had just left might have been a hundred miles away.
He strolled by the bookcase, scanning the titles. They were a patchwork mixture, ranging from The African Queen to The Wind in the Willows, from Robert Nathan to Emil Ludwig, from Each to the Other to Innocent Merriment. But they made a pattern, and in a little while he found it.
He said: "You like some nice reading."
"I have to do something with my feeble brain every so often. I may be just another night-club singer, but I did go to Smith College and I did graduate from University of California, so I can't help it if I want to take my mind off creep joints sometimes. It's really a great handicap."
He smiled.