XXIX.—Juliet Proves Herself Still Indifferent
On a July evening, a month later, Cathcart and a great roll of architects’ paper arrived on the Robeson porch. For an hour Juliet looked and listened, while Anthony, as he had promised, said not a word to bias her decision. Cathcart laid before her plans for a new house which were—even Anthony could but admit to himself beyond praise. From every standpoint—the artistic, the domestic, the practical, even the economical, so far as the modern architect understands the meaning of the word—the plans were ideal. Juliet studied them absorbedly, showing plainly her appreciation of them.
“It would be a beautiful home,” she said at length. “I can think of nothing more perfect than such a house.”
Cathcart looked triumphant. Without glancing at Anthony he produced another set of plans.
“Just to please myself, Mrs. Robeson,” he announced, “I have spent some interesting hours in trying to show what could be done with this old house, should any one care to lay out a reasonable sum upon it. Frankly, old houses never repay much expenditure of money, yet there is a certain satisfaction in working out the details of restoration and improvement which makes interesting study. Purely as a matter of that sort I have fancied such extensions as these.”
He laid the plans before her. Juliet looked, bent over them, cried out with delight, and called upon Anthony to join her.
“Oh, Mr. Cathcart,” she said eagerly, “before you proved yourself an exceedingly fine architect; but now you show yourself a master. To make this of the old house—why, it’s far the higher art.”
Anthony glanced, laughing, across at Cathcart, whose face had fallen so pronouncedly that Juliet would have seen it if she had been observing. But she was too absorbed in the new plans.