“Ripping old room,” Joe declared. “I’ve never known a room that didn’t have a personality—good, bad, or indifferent. Some rooms seem almost to speak to you.”
“Or, rather, they reflect the personality of the occupant,” said Enoch. “Some rooms reflect deeper than mirrors, my boy. They give out to you much of the true character of the person whom they shelter. They’re as much a part of them as their minds and manner of life.”
“Look at the charm of this old place—its friendliness, the way it hangs together!” Joe went on. He was bordering unconsciously on a compliment, Enoch swerving it with:
“Take, on the other hand, for instance, in your profession. There is nothing more ridiculous and incongruous to me than the houses some people live in. Some of you architects design salons and dining-rooms for people who would be far more at their ease in the kitchen. Imagine a boudoir with a Madame Récamier lounge for a woman’s rights delegate—a library for a grocer, and a ball-room for an undertaker, and you have my idea,” grinned Enoch.
“You ought to see the bedroom I’ve designed for Mrs. Amos Jones,” Joe declared. “She’s daft on Marie Antoinette ever since she saw the Petit Trianon last summer and bought the postal cards.”
Enoch broke out into a hearty laugh.
“I’ve got baa-lambs in blue bows and shepherdesses with golden crooks,” confessed Joe, “stencilled all over the frieze, and the royal crown made by a cabinet-maker in Hoboken over her canopied bed. Atwater was furious, but Mrs. Jones would have it.”
Enoch roared.
“That’s it,” said he. “I can see it all. What a lot of fools some women are.”
“Ever seen Mrs. Amos Jones?” Joe ventured.