“I wonder what yours would be like. Tell us what you think.”
Mrs. Hubbell’s question was light and Horatia should have parried it. But one of her moods of seriousness had come on her and she wanted to bring them all into it for a minute. She wanted to tell them before Langley what their home would be like. It was one of the revelations that an older person would have refused to make for fear of mockery but Horatia’s youth drove her on.
“My house? My house won’t be perfect because of lots of lacks. But I can tell you what I’d like to have. A house, quite large and spacious with just as little furniture in it as was necessary. Open spaces and deep halls and built-in settees with bright cushions where you could lie when you came home tired and where children could play and forget their toys. Room for everyone so no one would irritate anyone else. Fireplaces so that people could dream before them. A few guest-rooms for friends who wanted to come when they were tired or when they especially wanted to see me,—guest-rooms with the morning sun so that any tired person would wake up cheerful. Not too much service and not too many meals together. Breakfast, maybe, together, and then everyone would be free for the day. Trees about the house—big trees which would seem part of it. I would like a hospitable house and a free house. You see I was brought up in one in which crumbs on the floor were a mortal sin. It’s an atmosphere instead of a particular place that I want. I just get it vaguely—a long dark oak hall—with the light through windows at the back——” She broke off with an appealing half-laugh and half-sigh and the most involuntary look at Langley—“But I shall have to get the atmosphere in a six-room apartment probably. And I’m sure I can. And I want to.”
Then somehow she knew she had hurt Jim again and she stopped abruptly. Her description had been far too serious for the company and they were embarrassedly sober. But Mrs. Hubbell did not let go, quite yet.
“It was a beautiful description, dear,” she said, “wasn’t it, Jim?”
Jim gave her a quick side look and Mrs. Hubbell stopped. She could afford to, for Horatia wondered about that look. She felt she had made rather a fool of herself and had a sudden memory that Jim and the blonde lady were very old friends.
“I,” said Benedict, “want what I have achieved. A few rooms for which I pay rent and not taxes. A man whose services I can share with my neighbor, thereby reducing his wages. A shaving brush, the morning Times, a telephone and a light beside my bed. Keep your ambitions down, my friends, and you’ll be happy.”
“What I want,” the Russian dancer broke in, “is a suite at the Plaza. Perfectly good enough for me. And a bank account to keep the hotel clerk off my neck.”
“And since wishes aren’t horses, let’s change the subject before our discontents run away with us,” said Jim quietly.
They rolled up the rugs in the living-room and Kathleen Boyce played jazz music and the Russian dancers gave themselves over to the army officers, who danced beautifully. Horatia preferred to watch them, she told Jim, and he watched with her until Mrs. Hubbell, gay and informal as hostess, came up to claim him. Then Mrs. Boyce, resigning her place to the Victrola, joined Horatia.