CHAPTER VII
ALFRED
Cousin Eunice's new house in the city, which is really a very old house with the addition of all the wires and pipes and hardwood trimmings which we think we can't live without these days, is a love of a place. They bought it for the height of the ceilings and the size of the rooms, where every member of the family can spread out like a fried egg. But its especial glory is the drawing-room, a long, stately apartment all tricked out in the deepest, wild-woodiest green.
The walls and hangings are of the hue that our Mother Nature loves best, while the antique furniture is the color of chestnuts at Hallowe'en. There are dark-toned pedestals at intervals, holding jars of ferns, and the entire room presents such a perfect reproduction of a shady nook in the woods that Rufe declared at first he dared not venture into it, for fear of being snake-bitten.
There is a big leather chair over in one secluded corner, a chair which will easily hold the entire Clayborne family, and, on nights when there is no company and they are in a sentimental mood, the married lovers pretend that the room is the ravine in which they did their courting, and that the big chair is the old gray rock they were sitting on when he proposed to her.
This is a delightful make-believe—for them. Usually Waterloo and I are thrown upon each other for companionship, if it is late in the evening and Grapefruit has gone home.
He often begs for music, which I am always glad to furnish, or would be if his taste were not so very pronounced and so limited, and does not by any means include my favorite classics.
"You play 'Ditsie,' and I'll play 'Little Ditsie,'" his baby voice suggests, as he finds his French harp and blows a violent accompaniment. But if I tire of this and my fingers wander off into the mournful notes of the Miserere from Il Trovatore (another love of my youth) his harp and the corners of his mouth drop simultaneously, and he implores me not to play that "poor song."
This has not happened very many times, however, for there is nearly always somebody here. The Gordons frequently, and sometimes Alfred. They never come together, for whenever Doctor Gordon goes out anywhere at night Alfred has to stay at home and attend to the calls that come in. This is what a "cub" is for; then, too, it gives the Gordons a better chance to talk about him, which they take as much pleasure in doing as if he were their own dear son.