She led me up a vast stairway—it would have thrilled your soul, gentle reader. Think how it sounds, put into the fitting language— “The beautiful young Marchioness conducted her father up the ancient and magnificent stairway that rose from the spacious mediæval hall and swept in a curve of wonderfully wrought stone work, dating from the thirteenth century, to the upper chambers of the majestic old abbey.” I hurried her as fast as I could, for we both were sneezing and a hideous draught like the breath of death was streaming from somewhere. I don’t mind looking at pictures of abbeys and the like; but when I read of the grandeur of living in that sort of place, I laugh. The men who built them did as well as they could in the age they lived in. But what shall be said of men who dwell in them now, when infinitely better is to be had?
Those upper chambers! Cold, clammy, draughty—the furniture and hangings old and dowdy. And my daughter’s room! Like a squalid, decrepit tenement flat. Yes, squalid; for the rugs and draperies were dirty, were stained and frayed. There was a distinct tenement odor.
“Isn’t it fascinating?” said she, gazing round with sparkling eyes.
“Where’s the fire?” said I.
She led me to a smelly, low-ceilinged little room, like a segment out of a hovel. It was her boudoir, she informed me. In one wall, in a dinky fireplace burned a handful of fire.
“Is that it?” said I. “Is that all?”
“You must remember, papa,” said she proudly, “that this isn’t a modern house.”
“Ring for a servant,” said I. “This overcoat of mine is too light. I must have wraps if I’m to sit here. And you’d better get out your furs and put them on.”
“The servants’d think me mad,” said she. “Must you have a coat?”
“No—that spread will do,” said I. And I jerked it from the sofa and flung it round my shoulders. “I don’t want to upset your establishment. Good God, I had no idea people with any money at all anywhere on earth lived like this. If you’re going to stay here, you must put in steam heat.”