Elsie looked, with a satisfying seriousness. The house was so new that the builder's self-advertisement still jostled the sign offering for sale: "this modern residence, all improvements."
"I love it," she pronounced. "Those white cement houses are adorable; it looks as if it were made of cream-candy. What deep porches, like caves of white coral; and how deliciously the light gleams in those cunning, stained-glass windows! I suppose they are set up the stairs? It is a nice size, too; large enough to be quite luxurious, but not so large as to be appalling. How did you happen to notice it, dear?"
"I took this road for a short cut, one day. Look what a view you have up here. One must see twenty miles up and down the river, and over half New York. But it is open to inspection; let us go in."
"As if we were considering buying it," she fell in with the sport. "Yes, and we will be very critical indeed; find flaws and finally reject it. Really, Anthony, it does not at all compare with our present residence."
"You'll do," he approved, drawing her up the broad, lazily-low steps.
It really was an enchanting house; a house that developed unexpected charms to the pair who wandered through its empty, echoing rooms and halls. It indulged in nooks, and inconsequential little balconies; it displayed a most inviting window-seat halfway up the stairs that could only have been designed for lovers.
"But none have been there, yet," Elsie observed, lingering on the stairs to contemplate this last allurement. "Just think, Anthony, that it is a mere débutante of a house with its ball-book all unfilled. No one has sat before its hearth, or nestled in its window-seat, or opened its door to let in love or give out charity. It is an Undine house whose soul has not yet entered its cool whiteness. Oh, I hope the people who buy it are both fair and good, and respect its innocence!"
"Coral caves and Undines—your sentiment is all deep-sea, to-day," he teased her. "Elsie, doesn't all this make you want something?"
"Yes," she promptly returned looking over her shoulder at him as she descended. "I want something that I saw in the Antique Shop, yesterday. Will you buy it for me?"
"That depends. What is it?"