In the brief conversation that ensued as he neared the door to take his leave, Ebner Ford referred again to the hospitality of the young architects on the third floor, a tactless speech which Mrs. Ford received frigidly, and which forced Sue to confess guardedly:
“Strange—wasn’t it, mother?—Mr. Grimsby was at the Van Cortlandts’.”
“At the Van Cortlandts’! I trust it was by invitation,” returned her mother stiffly, recovering from her astonishment. “Nothing would surprise me in regard to that young man’s ability to force himself anywhere. Imagine, Mr. Crane—we were hardly——”
“But, mother, I only saw him for an instant, just as Mr. Lamont and I were leaving,” explained Sue. “He told me he had known the Van Cortlandts for years.”
“A most excellent young fellow,” declared Enoch briskly. “A most charming young fellow,” he insisted. “We are sadly in need of young men of his good taste and ability, when you consider, Mrs. Ford, how poverty-stricken in style our architecture has become. How many horrors in brownstone we are obliged to look at and live in. Atrocious jumbles, beastly attempts at Ionic and Corinthian—ugly, misshapen, and badly conceived—nightmares, madam, in stone—scarcely a detail that does not offend the eyes. Roman, French, Renaissance, and Tudor stewed together, capped by mansard roofs, and decorated with vagaries from the fret-saw, the lathe, and the cold chisel in the hands of bumpkins—we are sadly in need of a revolution in all this. New York is growing; it will be a beautiful city some day, but it will take many years to make it so. Young men like Mr. Grimsby and his colleague, Mr. Atwater, I tell you are worth their weight in gold.” And with that he took his leave, not, however, without the consciousness as he did so of a pair of blue eyes smiling into his own.
“Jack Lamont!” he muttered to himself, as he climbed the stairs to his rooms to dress for dinner at the club. “And he brought that child home in his brougham? Merciful Heaven!”
CHAPTER VII
The ever-watchful eye of the liveried servant in charge of the door of the club, whose duty it was to recognize a member from a visitor and receive him accordingly past that exclusive threshold, swung open the door to Mr. Enoch Crane to-night with a bow and a respectful smile of greeting.
“Good evening, James,” said Enoch pleasantly.
“Good evening, Mr. Crane,” returned the domestic; “a bad night, sir.”