“No, she wanted to give you an agreeable surprise. It’s on Park Avenue. We’ve rented it for the winter.” He didn’t add, with the privilege of buying; that was to be kept secret. He liked to be in conspiracy with Julie against her husband.
“It’s perfection; we’ve secured it with servants, wine cellar, everything complete.”
Floyd went home and compromised with Julie. The furnished house for the winter only; he was grateful she had not insisted on going to a fashionable hotel!—A camp in the mountains for the summer, and in the autumn when the street was built up, to return to the old home. Julie was satisfied with the bargain. The house would be impossible shut in on both sides; the walls were cracking; everything was going to pieces. She would never go back.
Floyd stood at the door of the car waiting for the “bunch” to come down—the boy, the nurse, the Pekinese, countless bags, dress suit cases, last-minute bundles, and—Julie very much excited. She had gone back for the little glass vase which had been forgotten. He was physically tired, mentally agonized; he cast one look back and jumped into the car. He had a peculiar feeling: he was the automobile; Julie was driving.
10
The house in Park Avenue was the very last word; Floyd had to confess that. The walls tinted a cold gray, the light coming from invisible corners, telephones, a radio-cabinet, china closets hidden behind panels; the entire floor could be made into a dancing hall by pushing the doors into the wall; no fireplace, very little furniture, meals rolled in ready to serve by the “haughty” Swede hired with the house, everything cooked “à la mode” by a chef, also hired with the house.
Julie was hysterical with joy; she had been all her life the victim of antiques; this was all so exquisitely modern. Floyd thought with intense longing of his little home; he vowed to himself he would not desert it; he’d go there every day and read his evening paper.
The house-warming was to be a brilliant affair. Maud with her restless activity schemed various plans for a sensational success. Tom sampled the cellar; it was perfection. Floyd was dispatched here, there, and everywhere; Julie sat back and gave the others carte blanche.
“Don’t consult me,” she said; “you three will do it all right.”
On the day of the dinner, Julie had been the entire afternoon in the hands of Hippolyte’s skilled lieutenants. He himself was to come later and give her hair the last touches.