“No,” he went on with knitted brows to reject the idea; “a house like that–one doesn’t come all the way from America to live in a house which has no more atmosphere than that!”
“Ah, but that’s the point, Gerald,” said Mrs. Foss. “What you call atmosphere these people avoid as they would an unsanitary odor. Atmosphere! What would you say 28if you saw the things Leslie and I have been helping them to buy and put into it! I love to buy, you know, even when not for myself. I thought with joy, ‘Now I shall at least go through the form of acquiring certain objects I have lusted after for years.’ Delightful old things Jerome has discovered in antiquarians’ places, and that we shall never be able to afford. Do you think I could persuade them to take one of these? I represented that the worm-holes could be stopped up and varnished over, that the missing bits of inlay, precious crumbs of pearl and ivory, could be replaced, the tapestries renovated. In vain. They want everything new–hygienically new, fresh, and shining. And, Gerald, prejudice apart, the idea is not without its good side. The result is not so bad as you may think. Why, after all, should my taste, your taste, prevail in their house, will you tell me?”
“For no reason in the world. This liberal view comes the easier to me that I do not expect ever to see the interesting treasures you may have collected from Peyron’s and Janetti’s.”
“If it were no worse than that!” put in Leslie, and laughed a covered laugh.
Mrs. Foss explained, after a like little laugh of her own.
“You see, things that we have seen till we have utterly ceased to see them, the things that nobody who really lives in Florence ever dreams of buying, are new to these people. They love them. As a result, you can guess. There will be in their apartments alabaster plates with profiles of Dante and Michelangelo on a black center. There will be mosaic tables with magnolias and irises. There will be Pliny’s doves. Think of it! There will be green bronze lamps and lizards–”
29“And the fruit–tell about that, Mother!” Leslie prompted.
“There will be on the sideboard in the dining-room a perpetual dish of magnificent fruit, marble, realistic to a degree. You know the kind.”
“And you could stand by and let them–you and Leslie!” spoke Brenda, in an astonishment almost seriously reproachful.
“My dear,” Leslie took up their common defense, “one’s feeling in this case is: What does it matter? A little more, a little less.... It all goes together. When they have those curtains, they might as well have that fruit.”