"That's my gal...." He got up a second time, forced a smile. "Let's go upstairs and see if anybody's around."
There were stairs. Wide and gently curving and constructed of a light, lusterless steel.
Architecturally, the house was little different from many of the expensive-looking California-type affairs he had seen in the women's magazines that Dot bought every so often. Yet there was something about its interior, a certain grace combined with a subtle simplicity that made it a work of art as a good painting or sculptural piece is art. There was rebellion in it—a gentle rebellion against the eye-aching extremes of artificial modernity, yet at the same time a freedom of execution that made the confines of formalized pattern seem childish.
The pastel carpeting was of a deep, soft substance that Doug recognized as a masterpiece in plastic; the furniture was simple, casual, but not stark and starved-looking. The rooms themselves were ample and were as bright in the far corners as in those nearest the wide, sashless windows. They were not separated by partitions, but divided instead by a fragile-appearing tracery of lattice-work in which a decorative motif was woven with an almost fairy-like geometrical magic. The air was cool and fresh.
"Now I know I'm dreaming," Dot said in a low voice. They walked quietly, from room to room, listening, half-waiting. "I expect any minute to find three bowls of porridge somewhere," Dot said.
"I wonder ..." Doug said. "What's here is—I think its ours. I think we live here."
"Doug look—through the window!"
He saw a broad lawn of carefully trimmed yet almost ankle-deep grass, inset at the edges with a running garden. And the street beyond was wide, and there were other houses at its far side that looked much as he knew this one must appear. Roofs of tinted tiling, walls of delicately-toned glass brick, wide, gently-curving windows.
These Doug saw in the first instant, and then there were the soundless vehicles in the street.