"I shall take some of our customers to our house, to show them the things they can't have. I mean, of course, the things they can't have except at a big price. Nothing bothers a collector so much as that. Your real connoisseur"—Quinney had not yet mastered the pronunciation of this word—"goes dotty when he can't get what he wants. By Gum, he feels as I used to feel when I wanted you, and the old man was alive and everlastingly jawing about Arabella Pinker. I shall have a lot of Arabellas in the shop, but my Susans will be at home."
"But, Joe, mother and I were so looking forward to furnishing the Dream Cottage."
"I know, I know!" He began to skate swiftly over the thin ice. "But your ideas, sweetie, are so—so semi-detached. You haven't got the instinct for the right stuff. I have. You and your mother want to stir up Laburnum Row. I'm a-going to make the whole of Melchester sit up and howl. See?"
Susan nodded. Very dimly she apprehended these incredible ambitions, and yet her instinct, no more at fault than his, whispered to her that Joe could do it. From that moment Laburnum Row appeared in its true proportions. Quinney said quickly:
"I'll leave the kitchen and the bedrooms to you, but, remember, no rubbish."
Accordingly it came to pass that the Dream Cottage was furnished with charming bits of Chippendale, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton, picked up here and there throughout Wessex. The rubbish in the shop was sold en bloc, being taken over by a small dealer. The premises were put into the hands of a London decorator, a friend of the great Tomlin.
Upon the day the painters went in Quinney marched out and married his Susan.
CHAPTER III
THE PLEASANT LAND OF FRANCE
I