“To take this South Street flat.”
Challenger recoiled. For a moment he appeared about to founder. Then he strove to speak—ineffectually.
At length—
“You’re tired,” he said hoarsely. “That’s all. Tired and overwrought.”
“Rot,” said Julia. “It’s this flat or Hill Street, of course. The question is which. Hill Street is very——”
“But it’s settled,” screamed Hubert. “It was settled two hours ago. The moment we saw——”
“That,” said Julia, “is my trouble. Now that I’ve had time to think, I’m not at all sure that Hill Street wouldn’t be best. For one thing——”
“Look here,” said Hubert uncertainly. “Yesterday we saw Hill Street. We both found it a most elegant, agreeable apartment, more than suitable to our requirements and cheap at the price. To-day we inspected ten of the most bestial lodgments that ever cumbered the earth. When I ventured to compare them with Hill Street I was reviled as a slow belly.”
“How dare you?” said Julia. “I never——”
“That,” said Hubert, “was what you inferred. To-night—thanks entirely to your tireless enterprise, which I readily confess I did my best to embarrass—we totter slap into H.M.’s Dolls’ House—life-size. . . . Well, we both go wild about Harry. We rise up and call one another blessed. For an hour we stagger deliriously about our future home, repeatedly disclosing to each other its perfectly manifest excellence and fatuously declaring our relish by word and deed. The idea of comparing it with its predecessors never occurred to me. It wouldn’t have occurred to anyone, because—it is incomparable.”