“But this is beautiful. Have you never used it?”
“It might be used with an electric connection, I suppose. No, I’ve never used it as an oil lamp. I hate kerosene oil.”
“But you have some in the house?”
“Oh, yes, I think so. Wayne insisted on getting some little hand-lamps. Something’s always happening to the wires out here. That’s one of the numerous joys of living in the suburbs.”
“Let’s fill this and try it,” Juliet suggested, turning a pair of very bright eyes upon her friend. “If you’ve never lit it I don’t believe you’ve half appreciated it. You’re neglecting one of the prettiest sources of decoration you have in the house. Out of sympathy for the giver, whoever he was, you ought to let his gift have a chance to show you its beauty.”
“Stevens Cathcart gave it to us, I believe,” said Judith. “Here, let me have it. I’ll fill it, since you insist. But I never thought very much of it. It was put away in a closet until we came here. It took up so much room I never found a place for it.”
“Mr. Cathcart gave it to you? That proves my point, that it’s worth admiring. If there’s a connoisseur in things of this sort, it’s he. He probably picked it up in some out-of-the-ordinary European shop.”
Smiling to herself, as if something gave her satisfaction, Juliet awaited the return of her hostess. She understood, from the manner of Judith’s exit with the lamp, that the free and easy familiarity with which guests invaded every portion of Anthony’s little home, was not to be made a precedent for the same sort of thing in Judith’s.
The lamp reappeared, accompanied by a lamentation over the disagreeable qualities of kerosene oil for any use whatever.
“You can put electricity into this and use it as a drop-light, if you prefer,” said Juliet, as she lit it and adjusted the shade. “May I set it on the big table over here? Right in the center, please, if you don’t mind moving that bowl of carnations. There!—Of course you can send it back to oblivion over there on the bookcase if you really don’t like it.—But you do like it—don’t you?”