The Cliff-Dwellers: A Novel

by Henry Blake Fuller

The particular institution in which Ann was interested bore some external resemblance to its great prototype across the street. It was smaller and, if possible, uglier; but it, too, had its quadrangular arcade, its big square skylight, its ladies' gallery. In this gallery Ann sat daily for several hours, along with other women of a like turn of mind, and kept an eye on the proceedings generally. After a few sessions she became accustomed to the mere externals of the place—the endless shuffle of feet on the grimy floor, the sharp yawps of raw and eager voices, the flinging aloft of excited arms, the little tangles of noise and passion that were instantly woven around every new-comer with, an offer to buy or to sell. She looked over this choppy sea across to the promised land that was being portrayed on the opposite blackboard; the artist paced to and fro on a long, high, narrow platform, and worked in the uncertainty of a single drop-light. He frequently changed his mind, and his alterations usually had a deep and sometimes a discouraging effect upon Ann and her associates. Every now and then one would retire into the hallway and consult with her agent, and then there would be the rustle of greenbacks, and the agent would take the elevator down and presently be seen among the crowd of men on the floor. The agent was likely to be a gallant fellow, only too happy to be of service to a lady.

Ann was now a member of Floyd's household, in good and regular standing. She felt herself very much at home. What was her brother-in-law's was her sister's, and what was her sister's was hers. She was usually the first to unfold the morning paper; she pre-empted the bathroom with little regard to Walworth's established habits; and if the idea of some trifling delicacy occurred to her she would order it from the grocery, and after it had appeared on Walworth's table it appeared again in his bill. She did not stand on ceremony; she waived all stiff formality; cosily and frankly she was quite one of the family.

As such, she used Walworth's office quite freely, and in the same capacity she joined in the conferences which the Floyds were now beginning to hold with Atwater up under his great skylight in the roof. Atwater's little house for Claudia had given great satisfaction, and he was now about to do a larger one for Claudia's parents, who had begun to look upon their banishment to the West as a perpetual fact. Claudia's house had been delivered with its stairs, its windows, its red chimney, and its chandeliers—which last were composed by a pushing young draughtsman who was as anxious to make interest with Atwater as Atwater had perhaps been to make interest with Floyd.

Atwater was accustomed to people who didn't know their own minds, to people who knew their own minds too well, to people who had too many minds to really have any mind at all, and to people who had so much money that they didn't need to have any mind. He was impeccably suave and unruffled, but he had the immense advantage of being able to impress the unduly brusque and capricious and exasperating among his clients with the fact that they were dealing with a gentleman and an artist. He also put a good deal of "presence" into the rendering and the collecting of his accounts; there was no more disputing his charges than his taste.

He took equally, with his urbane imperturbability, the anxious carpings of Mrs. Floyd and the easy joking of her husband. Ann he quietly ignored, and Walworth thanked him; for his sister-in-law's interest in the new house was becoming oppressively personal. As for Claudia, he always saw that she had, out of his sample cabinet, all the bits of tiling and scraps of marqueterie that she needed; and if she fancied a promenade among the boards and trestles of his drawing-room, her whim was gratified. Ogden and Jessie, who sometimes came too, he welcomed pleasantly—the guests of the present were the clients of the future. Ogden admired his beautiful manners and his whitened hair; one day he amusedly recalled Jessie's determination to make her husband's hair like it.

He looked at Atwater, who was explaining his preliminary sketches to the Floyds and was trying to fix the general bearings of hall, stairway, and closets; his hair looked whiter still under the diffused glare from the skylight.

George turned to Jessie, with his hand on his own head, so smooth and shining brown.

"This is the hair you are to whiten," he said, and he lifted his eyebrows in a smile.

"I never saw such a boy!" she murmured in a repressed ecstasy. "Do you remember everything I have said?" No one was looking, and she placed her own hand on his other temple.

"Wouldn't powder do?" he asked lightly.