Polly approached Thurley with open arms, saying in her crisp fashion, “Bliss tells me you have never known father, mother nor telephone number and we can baby you all we like,” bending down unexpectedly to kiss her.
Before Thurley answered, Polly whirled around to demand, “Listen, every one, I’ve come to the conclusion we should all be thankful for anything that makes cold chills go up and down our spines,” dashing into some nonsensical adventure told in her own fashion.
Hobart waited until the conclusion, after which he offered Thurley his arm and led the way into the dining room which proved to be an enclosed sort of terrace with wonderfully imitated flowering shrubs, green striped awnings, a lily pool fountain giving a touch of the unreal and illusive. Wicker chairs, artificial ascension lilies and Canterbury bells were in profusion. The room was called the “village green,” Caleb whispered to Thurley, and on nights when the thermometer skidded below zero, Hobart delighted to come into this exquisite little oasis of almost tropical heat and make his guests forget the sleet and frost without. Two chairs were tipped against their well appointed places, one for Mark Wirth, the dancer, and one for Sam Sparling, the actor, Thurley learned, a family custom always observed.
As they sat about the table, Thurley between Polly and Collin, Polly remarked naïvely:
“I’m trying to get Collin to tell me why women who dabble in water colors always paint ‘Pharaoh’s Horses’ with chests like inflated, tuppenny balloons?”
“How can a mere painter of fried egg sunsets answer?” he retorted. “Oh, I say, about Daphne’s wedding present—Polly doesn’t want to send it.”
At which a chorus of “why nots” issued, to which Polly said forcibly:
“Because it will remind her of what she can never have. Pick out some nice, golden oak and green plush article which will do credit to the establishment of one Oscar Human, plumber at large. It will be salve on a throbbing wound. Daphne will think, bless her amateurish old heart, that it is our choice and being typical of the golden oak and green plush atmosphere which must always be hers, she’ll still feel one of us! But that green metal desk set with silver trim—horrors, think of its shivering with loneliness in Oscar’s back parlor!”
“Right,” Hobart added, “I’ll get the picture of a wistful tabby cat staring at oysters fairly shivering in their shells and a battenberg doily underneath—no, that would be too broad—we’ll get—I say, here’s our infant fresh from Birge’s Corners and Birge’s Corners’ brides—nearly one herself if the truth were known! What ho, Thurley, what would you propose to give a Birge’s Corners’ bride that would meet the town’s approval?”